Batavia’s Chapman racing against world’s best swimmers

It’s beautiful in Guadalajara this time of year.

At least in the Scotiabank Aquatics Center. That’s where Batavia junior Amy Chapman spent much of her time from Nov. 13-19, swimming in the Parapan American Games held in the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco.

Modeled after and following the Pan Am Games, the Parapan Games provide 15 events for physically challenged athletes, from judo to bocce to, well, swimming.

Chapman, who swims with the Academy Bullets club team operated by Rosary coach Bill Schalz and also plays wheelchair basketball with the Windy City Warriors, sponsored by the Western DuPage Special Recreation Association, was born with fibular hemimelia.

“Basically it just meant she was missing some of the significant bones in her lower legs,” said her mother, Leslie. Amy’s twin brother, Trevor, was not born with that condition; he’s a 6-foot-1 guard on the Bulldogs varsity basketball team.

Amy, 16, said she has several inches of tibia bone below her knees, but no fibula. During her daily routine she uses prosthetics but in the pool, where prosthetics are prohibited, it’s mainly upper-body strength.

“We work a lot on getting high elbows and pulling as much water with each stroke as possible, that’s the biggest thing,” said Amy, who does use her legs to push off the wall on her turns and gets some slight propulsion with her kick.

“Because arms are all I have, I need to get as much out of them as I can.”

That is quite a bit, considering she’s done 105 pounds on bench press.

Chapman, an A and B student and choir girl who this year was named Academic All-State by Illinois Swimming, first hit open water as a tyke at Quarry Beach. When she was about 10 years old her father, Keith, was transferred and the Chapmans moved to Arkansas. She followed a friend onto a club swim team sponsored by the local park district.

Her first main athletic pursuit was gymnastics starting at about 3, her mother said. Amy favored floor, trampoline, bars and a lot of simply fun tumbling, though she was gearing up for eventual competition.

“We put her in gymnastics to learn balance and movement,” Leslie said. “ ... And she loved it.”

A second transfer just a year later sent the family back to Batavia, where Amy has continued swimming at the Vaughn Athletic Center in Aurora and also at Marmion, with the Bullets. She represented Batavia at the state high school swimming sectionals as a freshman and sophomore.

“I can do everything everyone else does, but I just have to do it differently or slower, depending on whatever it is,” she said. “But in the water I don’t have to change anything, I can just do it the same as everyone else. There’s nothing I have to change or modify.”

Although, her technique concentrates on the most efficient use of her upper body.

“When I talked to Amy, she said that’s why technique is so important for them. There’s no room for error,” said Jeff Watson, with Illinois Swimming.

Competitive swimmers challenged by physical, visual and intellectual impairments are assigned different classifications within each event based upon the degree of their impairment. Within her classification Chapman is among the top 16 in the world in the breaststroke, she said, and in the top 18 in a couple other events.

In Guadalajara she competed in seven events: the 50-, 100- and 400-meter freestyle, the 100 breaststroke, 100 backstroke, 100 fly and the 200 individual medley.

She swam away pleased particularly with her performance in the 100 breast, in which she set a Parapan Games record within her classification.

“That was cool,” she said. Chapman recorded personal-best times in each event but the 50 and 100 freestyle, and those were comparable with her top marks.

“I was extremely happy with how it turned out,” she said. “It was interesting because I’m not used to elevation and there was elevation, and that had a lot to do with it. So I was happy I got my best times even with the elevation.”

One of 189 athletes and 23 swimmers among the American delegation, Chapman was pleased to hang out in Mexico with Waubonsie Valley sophomore Alyssa Gialamas, the American record-holder in the 200 freestyle. The two girls had met playing wheelchair basketball. They were the only two swimmers from Illinois.

“Everyone lives all around the country, and we live like 15 minutes away (from each other) and we never see each other,” Chapman said. “We need to change that.”

The Parapan experience, in and out of the Scotiabank Center, was a good one. Leslie Chapman said fans cheered for every competitor “whether they were in first place or they were in last place.”

“I had a blast,” Amy said. “Just getting to know all the people on the teams, being in an environment like that, and seeing what a big meet like that was like.”

Of course, it didn’t stop there. On Wednesday Amy and Leslie Chapman flew into California, where in LaMirada from Thursday through Saturday the Can-Am Open Swimming Championships are being held. Trials for the United States Paralympic Team will be held in late March in Bismarck, N.D., to decide the team that competes in London next summer.

“That’s really my focus right now,” Amy said. “If not, I’ll keep swimming and try for Rio de Janeiro (for the 2016 Paralympics).”

What all started in a Batavia quarry has provided Amy not only the perks of a healthy lifestyle, as Leslie noted, but the chance to meet people from around the world.

“It’s just opened up so many opportunities to do that,” Leslie Chapman said. “It’s just been a great and fantastic experience.”

doberhelman@dailyherald.com