Crohn’s Disease, it’s not just for geeks anymore. This article I found online explains how Olympian Athlete Kalyn Keller (2004 Olympic Swimmer) is leaving her sport due to Chron’s Disease. For those interested in the article I have included it in this post.
For a competitor who loves the long races, Kalyn Keller is in for what will likely be the most challenging race of her life. Keller, a 2004 Olympian and former NCAA champion, is reportedly retiring from the sport after recently being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease.
Keller says she plans to move home to Arizona with her parents, leaving Club Wolverine where she’s trained since January. Keller, who’d competed along with her brother Klete at the 2004 Olympic Games, had recently made the transition to Open Water Swimming. She won the USA’s first ever Open Water Swimming medal at the 2007 Fina World Championships, taking home a silver in the women’s 25k.
According to a report in the Detroit Free Press (read the full article here), Keller says she started feeling sick in mid-July after a fourth place finish in the women’s 10k open water race at Pan-Ams in Brazil. After finishing fourth at the U.S. open-water 10k trials in Florida this past October, Keller was no longer in the running to qualify for Beijing in 2008.
Keller tells the Detroit Free Press that she’s got to go home now and “do what I have to do to get healthy.” For a swimmer who’s taken to the most gruelling of races, she is likely in for a gruelling struggle.
Crohn’s disease is essentially a type of bowel disease where the lining of the digestive tract becomes inflamed. It’s not clear what causes it, but the disease can be both painful and debilitating. According to the Mayo Clinic’s website, it typically strikes people between the ages of 20 and 30 and those who have a close relative with the disease are much more likely to develop it. There is no known cure, but there are therapies that can help people live a normal life, even put the disease into life-long remission.
As a former swimmer and current coach, one thing that’s always touched me about this sport is it’s enduring sense of community and fellowship. No matter where or what you swim, we can all relate to each other at the most basic emotional and physical levels: Elation, exhaustion, pride, disappointment, surprise, and ecstasy. Most of us have been on the same type of roller coaster ride, whether that ride takes place at the Olympic Games or the Junior Olympics. And when the unexpected strikes any one of us, all of us can imagine how that person feels.
Kalyn Keller may be leaving the swimming pool and the open water behind, but she isn’t leaving the swimming community.
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