Meet the first University of Northern Iowa swimmer to make the U.S. Paralympic team

As a little girl growing up in Little Rock, Ark., Olivia Chambers could see clearly.

She could see the pristine water in the pool where she took her first swim lessons at age 4. She could see the other swimmers she passed as she got increasingly competitive — breaking her first state record at age 7. And she could see herself in the future — continuing to swim and win and one day compete at a higher level.

But, without warning one day as a 16-year-old high school junior, she awoke to an obscured view — ushering in an alternate reality.

“I was just kind of reading a book, and all of a sudden everything was super blurry,” said Chambers, who today is 21 and heading into her senior year at the University of Northern Iowa.

Back on that day of obscurity as a teenager, Chambers said she didn’t immediately panic. “It was a little scary,” she said. “I was like, this is kind of weird.”

Her optometrists assured her she’d recover.

“They told me that it was normal and should clear up within a couple days,” she said. “Obviously it didn't. But for a whole year and a half, the doctors told me that I would get my vision back.”

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‘The place for me’

As her vision grew increasingly blurry, Chambers eventually was diagnosed with multiple mitochondrial gene deletion syndrome — while also suffering from nystagmus, a condition causing her eyes to make repetitive, uncontrolled movements.

“In the beginning, I also went cross-eyed. So I had special prism lenses that made me see single instead of double,” she said. “Now I just keep my left eye closed. … It's just easier when I close one eye.”

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She endured surgeries and Botox, a treatment for nystagmus, but nothing improved or corrected her condition — which qualified her as legally blind.

“It was definitely an adjustment,” Chambers said of how the loss affected her swimming. “I would run into a lot of walls.”

Having been honored in 2017 as the best distance swimmer in Arkansas, Chambers said her vision impairment slowed her down.

“It took me a couple years, honestly, to figure out how to swim normal again,” she said. “I had to figure out what my stroke count was for each race, so I relied on that to know when I turn.”

Despite the obstacles Chambers faced, she maintained a 4.38 GPA as a senior in high school and won her school’s Alana Wolfe Memorial Scholarship for outstanding character. Having competed in 21 state meets through her youth swimming career, Chambers said she considered several colleges before landing on UNI in 2021.

“I was getting recruited during COVID, and so that really threw a wrench in things,” she said, admitting that in the beginning, “I was not looking at UNI at all.”

“But when programs (in Arkansas) started cutting budgets and not being able to take as many people, or just cutting the team as a whole, I expanded my search, and UNI happened to be one of them.”

UNI’s team and environment — although not her first consideration — in the end seemed the best fit for her.

“They seemed to have a lot of fun with swimming, instead of putting a lot of pressure on it,” Chambers said. “And the coaches seemed super supportive, and so I just felt like that was the place for me.”

Olympic dreams

Fast forward to the end of her freshman her as a Panther, Chambers said the coaches sat her down to discuss their vision for her.

“They discussed doing para-swimming, because they thought I would really succeed,” Chambers said. “And I'm really glad they did. Because that gave me the push I needed to be like, OK, maybe it's something I should do.”

Her coaches were right, with Chambers’ entree into para swimming earning her a trip to Manchester, England, last year for the Para Swimming World Championships — where she earned six medals, including two silver medals and four bronze medals.

With her figurative sights again set on Europe, Chambers last month traveled to Minnesota to compete for a spot on the U.S. team at the upcoming Paralympic Games in Paris, scheduled Aug. 28 to Sept. 8.

And she delivered, recording a pair of first-place finishes and a pair of second-place finishes.

Given the U.S. Paralympic team chooses its athletes using a formula to calculate the likelihood a person is to win a medal, rather than just taking the top two swimmers in each event, Chambers said even with her strong results she wasn’t sure she’d made the team.

“You don't know who's going to be on the team fully until the day they announce it,” she said.

And even when they did, Chambers said it didn’t feel real.

“Honestly, I couldn't really believe it,” she said. “It was super crazy. … I honestly didn't know what to feel.”

Now in training mode, Chambers is feeling excited as one of 21 women and 33 total athletes chosen for the Paralympic swim team. She also becomes the first UNI swimmer in school history named to a U.S. Paralympic team and joins an elite list of Panther athletes to qualify for either the Olympic or Paralympic Games.

“To be among the 33 athletes chosen to represent the red, white and blue in Paris is a tremendous honor,” UNI assistant swim coach Ben Colin said. “We are so proud of Olivia and all her hard work to earn a spot on this year's U.S. Paralympic Team. Her determination to chase her goals is something to behold, and we can't wait to see her represent her country in France.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com