Sports

From a distance – Jessica Long looks like your average American teenager. She loves to spend time with her friends and do all the things that a normal teenager likes to do. Yet, when you get to know her you will find out that she is not your typical teenager. In fact she has done things that most only dream of.

Although Long tries to downplay her many accomplishments, there’s no denying her success is monumental. Long, who turns 16 on Friday, is a world-champion swimmer despite being born without bones in the lower part of her legs. She currently holds 14 world records for a female swimmer with a disability, including five set during the 2006 World Swimming Championships - where she won nine gold medals - in South Africa. She won three gold medals at the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece, when she was 12 and the youngest member of the American delegation.

She now has her sights set on the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing in September. “I want to win seven golds,” Long says. “I know I can do it.” Her coach, Andrew Barranco, thinks it’s possible. “She is ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in all seven of those events,” he says. “She set five records in the World Games, so seven is not out of the question.”

Long, who lives in Baltimore, was born in Irkutusk, Russia, a small town in Siberia. She was born without fibulas, heels, ankles or many of the other bones in either of her legs or feet. She was adopted from a Russian orphanage by her American parents at 13 months, then had to have both legs amputated below the knee at 18 months.

As Long grew, she fell in love with a sport – gymnastics. But after six years of lessons, her parents were concerned about the strain on her knees and prosthetic legs. So, in the backyard pool at her grandparents’ house near Baltimore, Long was introduced to swimming and joined a local swim club.

“I only knew two strokes at first,” she says. “The first day killed me. It was so hard, but I kept going back to the team. Most of the other kids didn’t even know I was missing my legs until I got out of the pool.” Though she now says she can’t imagine her life without swimming, she has tried her hand at many other sports, including rock climbing. She also is matter-of-fact about her disability.

“I really like basketball a lot,” she says. “Running is fun, too. I have special running (prosthetic) legs. I’ve tried a lot of different things. Cheerleading was fun. Ice skating was fun. “I tried skiing, but I lost both of my legs,” she said with a laugh. “They fell off the first time.”