Milan: Paralympic swimming icon Jessica Long is aiming for greater glory at the upcoming Paris Games after a traumatic journey from a Siberian orphanage to a phenomenal career in the pool.
Long is one of the faces of American para sports with 29 Paralympic medals since her first Games in 2004 as a 12-year-old, one more than her friend Michael Phelps, who is the most decorated Olympian of all time.
The 32-year-old, who was born with fibular hemimelia and had both legs amputated below the knee as a child, has two more Paralympics to add to her bulging accolades as she plans to hang up her swimming cap. 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
“Obviously I want to win gold and do my best. Whatever happens, I’m so very grateful and proud of what I’ve done… I think it would be amazing to finish on home soil,” Long said. in an interview for AFP organized with the swimwear manufacturer Arena.
Long is a legend in her discipline, but as she only plans to compete in two more Paralympics, she will fall short of the record 55 medals set by American Trischa Zorn 20 years ago.
That’s because, unlike Zorn’s day, Paralympic swimmers are limited to seven events, meaning the maximum Long can go is 43.
“I wonder what I could have done if I could have swum that many events. Especially when you’re little because your body just doesn’t hurt,” Long says.
“In one Paralympics (Seoul 1988) she (Zorn) won 12 gold medals because there were more opportunities. Bring back the events!”
Long is concerned about the integrity of his sport because he says swimmers are manipulating the classification system for disabled athletes.
Para swimming, like other handicap disciplines, categorises athletes to compete against people of similar physical ability, with control swimming used to classify competitors.
But there have been a number of cheating scandals in parasport. One such example came in 2022, when Indian discus player Vinod Kumar was banned for two years for deliberately misrepresenting his abilities at the last Paralympics in Tokyo.
Long says deliberate misrepresentation during review swims is still a big problem in her sport.
“Because people have a disability, people are afraid to test it or challenge it. But I think it needs to be looked at more closely,” says Long.
“Doping (control) is supposed to be random, right?… But when it comes to revising classifications, they (athletes) know they’re being revised… and we all know how to swim slower.
“You have to swim honestly. That’s the whole message of the Paralympic movement.”
Paralympic athletes are often portrayed as conflicting stories, but Long, who says she wants to “be an inspiration,” had an upbringing that was busier than most.
Born in the Siberian city of Bratsk, Long was abandoned as a child by her Russian biological parents and adopted from an orphanage by American couple Steve and Beth Long when she was barely a year old.
Long grew up in Baltimore but didn’t meet her biological parents until she was 20, by which time she was already a multiple Paralympic gold medalist.
Long is fully aware of the potential horrors that would await her if she wasn’t adopted. “I don’t think my life would be very good, it would be very ugly,” Long says.
“I think you can imagine what orphans go through, they go through a lot of horrible things. Horrible sex trafficking. I think that would be my life.”
Long admits that as a child and young para swimmer, she was “constantly” angry about her disability, being abandoned by her biological parents, and being “looked down upon” as a disabled athlete.
She tells AFP how she was forced to train with Olympic athletes like Phelps after “nobody knew or cared” when she took home the medals she won at the 2012 Paralympics on her way back to the States.
“Anger is a very powerful emotion that I don’t think we talk about enough,” says Long. “People ask me where my success comes from and I would say ‘abandonment and anger.’
“I really think my success came from wanting to have enough. And at some point I had to really reassess and say ‘I just like to swim.’
