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ISU
swimmer competes in national event
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[DEC. 10, 2005]
NORMAL -- Illinois State's Jennifer Durrant is
currently in Minneapolis, Minn., to compete in the U.S. Paralympics
Open Swimming Championships. Between 150 and 250 athletes with a
range of disabilities are competing this weekend. The competition,
with participants from 16 countries, began on Thursday and will
conclude on Saturday. The preliminaries are in the morning and final
rounds at night.
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Durrant, an Oak Forest native, was born with congenital deficiency
of the tibia and has been competing in the Paralympics for four
years. She qualified for the Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece, and
took seventh in the world in the 100 backstroke. She held the
American record for swimmer with a disability in the 50, 100 and
200-meter backstroke. Durrant looked forward to competing again
this weekend. "This is a really a big meet," she said. "We have a
national team for the U.S. This meet can determine whether you are
on the team. By dropping .03 seconds you can qualify."
Durrant was scheduled to compete in the 400-meter freestyle and
the 200-meter individual medley on Friday. On Saturday she is
competing in the 100-meter backstroke and the 100-meter freestyle.
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 Illinois State head coach Steve Paska admires Durrant's desire
for the sport. "She loves the sport," he said. "Jennifer works
extremely hard and has a great attitude. She is in terrific shape
and she has been focusing on this for some time. She takes pride in
representing the USA. I was really glad she wanted to come out for
the team."
Further information about this weekend's competition is available
at www.usparalympics.org.
[Illinois
State University news release]
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