Sarah Keenahan is a small person with a big future.
She has just returned from the World Dwarf Games with six gold and two silver medals in three different sports. And now she’s eyeing off the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
The Korowal High student, 16, set personal best records in the pool, including in her 200 metre freestyle event where she shaved 11 seconds off her previous best effort.
“I think I took two breaths in the last 25 metres … that was definitely my favourite race.”
The 117cm athlete finished with gold in the 100 fly, 50 and 100m backstroke, 200 freestyle, 4 x 25 freestyle open women’s relay and 4 x 50 m relay, as well as silver in the soccer and a track and field relay event.
The 7th World Dwarf Games was held in Canada on August 4-12 and Sarah had plenty of highlights.
“We were the first debut team to make it into a gold medal match [in soccer],” the midfielder said of her soccer silver medal, a game played in thunder and lightning.
She has only been swimming competitively for four years but has already smashed records in backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke 50 metre events for her S6 classification – short stature athlete.
She’s completing her HSC through Pathways and fits it in with an intensive training regime involving 4.30am wake-up calls at Nepean Aquatic Centre with ex-Paralympic coach, Jackie Barck.
