Growing up swimming in her grandparents’ lake in northern Wisconsin, NYU junior Katie Kubiak has always loved the water. Her dream was to represent the United States at the Olympics, and those dreams may not be too far off, as she was selected to represent her country in May.
Kubiak, who is double-majoring in journalism and film and television, began swimming competitively at 5 years old and, by the age of 12, had started to qualify for national meets. She was forced to quit the sport after her late-onset congenital myopathy required major spinal surgery at age 14, but as the disease progressed, she was put into a wheelchair.
“As a kid, the water always felt like the place that I thrived,” Kubiak said. “Now, since becoming disabled, it’s the same sport, but it’s different now, and I almost think it’s more special. It’s become this space of freedom.”
Kubiak had “a lot of frustration” and said when she first quit swimming — “it just felt wrong.” She lost a big part of her life at the time, her routine used to be wake up, swim, go to school, have dinner, swim again and sleep. She also missed racing — the adrenaline of preparing for meets, stepping up to the block and the feeling of touching the wall at the end to look up at her times, whether good or bad.
Her passion for the sport never faltered though and she found a new way to express it through para swimming, and all from watching Mallory Weggemann win gold at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
“We both had that trajectory of being an able-bodied athlete, then having a progression of disease or an accident happen, and now we’re both para swimmers,” Kubiak said. “Seeing how powerful and strong she still was inspired me to get back into the water, and I love everything she stands for, her message is incredible.”
With the full support of her parents, Kubiak began formally training again in the summer of 2023 with her first swim partner, her brother, and has been training by herself in the Palladium Athletic Facility swimming pool in, starting as early as 6:30 a.m. and as late as 9 p.m., fitting it in wherever she can.
Her hard work and dedication paid off — at the Baltimore Para Classic in March, she placed second in the 200-yard freestyle, fourth in the 100-yard freestyle, and fifth in the 100-yard breaststroke. Not only that, but she broke five American records as a new S4 para swimmer — the 50-meter freestyle, 100-meter freestyle, 200-meter freestyle, 50-meter backstroke and 150-meter individual medley.
In May, at another para swimming meet, Kubiak met the time standards needed to be selected for the national team, taking the first step in qualifying for the 2028 Summer Paralympic Games. She and her family were pulled aside by a U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee member who told them she had qualified for the national team, giving her the opportunity to qualify for the Paralympics.
“It’s still something that hasn’t really set in, saying that I qualified for the U.S. national team,” Kubiak said. “I haven’t had the emotional significance hit me yet, and it’s been my dream growing up. I was forced to leave my sport at such a premature time that I never had that dream realized. But I feel like I’m continuing where I left off, fulfilling the dream my childhood self had.”
Contact Jonathan Mak at [email protected].
