Local athlete sets Paralympic medal record

By Jared Harmon

Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2008 | midnight

Heading into the Paralympic Games in Beijing, Coronado senior Cortney Jordan said she would be happy to come away with one medal.

After six events, Jordan returned from her first appearance at the games with four medals, a new American record and a new Paralympic record.

She has lived with partial paralysis on her left side after being diagnosed with periventricular leukomalacia, a similar condition to cerebral palsy, at birth.

"It was awesome to compete at that level against so many great athletes," Jordan said. "It really was a dream come true. My family got to come and see me so that made it even better."

Jordan took the bronze medal in her first race Sept. 1 when she finished the 200 individual medley in 3 minutes, 7.59 seconds.

She had accomplished her goal of winning one medal, but had plenty of more memorable swims left.

She proceeded to rattle off a string of personal best swims including a fourth place finish in the 100 backstroke to set an new American record in 1:26.57 and silver medal finishes in the 400 freestyle (5:21.9) and the 200 free (1:12.09).

On Sept. 8, Jordan saved the best for her final event, the 50 free, where she set a new Paralympic record at 33.84 to earn a gold medal.

"It's kind of surreal to think about," she said. "It hasn't really sunk in. Things have been so hectic with coming back to the U.S. and trying to get caught up at school. When I came back I had so many text messages and phone calls. When I came to school everyone was congratulating me. It's been amazing."

The Paralympic Committee has 13 classifications for its competitions ranging from S1, competitors with the least mobility, to S10, competitors with the most mobility. There are also classifications S11 to S13 for competitors with visual impairments. Jordan competes in the S7 level using a slightly modified backstroke and freestyle and a one-armed butterfly and breaststroke.

Jordan's mother, Nancy Jordan, hoped her daughter would take at least one medal. But, even after her third trip to the awards podium, they still didn't predict a gold medal performance in the 50 free. She dropped two seconds of her personal best time.

"After preliminaries she was (seeded) fourth in the finals so we were hoping a good swim could get her another bronze," Nancy Jordan said. "She had a slow reaction time on the start so we though that was that but half way through she caught them all. The finish was so close I thought she got second place."

When the official times came up on the scoreboard, however, Cortney Jordan's older sister Mikaela was the first to notice and began screaming to spark a large family celebration in the stands.

Jared Harmon can be reached at 990-8922 or [email protected].