Ellen Keane

Started: The youngest of four siblings, she was brought to swim classes with her older brothers and sister. She began competing at age seven in Dublin, Ireland. (Athlete, 09 Sep 2019) Reason: Her father contacted the mother of a Paralympian who had a similar impairment, and she was subsequently invited to a Para swimming competition. "Geraldine Conway, manager of the Irish Paralympic swim team, contacted my dad and invited me to compete in a disability swimming competition in Northern Ireland to see if I enjoyed swimming competitively. It wasn't really anything that I was expecting, but I realised that I loved competing and I loved the control that gave me." (Athlete, 12 Jul 2015, 11 Apr 2011; allianz.ie, 29 Mar 2019) Ambition: To compete at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. After she retires from competition, she would like to work in the media. (Instagram profile, 07 Aug 2023; thesun.ie, 20 Jul 2023) Awards: She was named Para Swimmer of the Year by Swim Ireland in 2022 and 2018. (westmeathindependent.ie, 10 Oct 2022; swimswam.com, 26 Nov 2018) Additional Info: RETIREMENT PLAN She intends to retire from competition following the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. "I found this year [speaking in August 2023] incredibly tough in the pool. I struggled with finding the joy in what I was doing, I had to manage an injury, I began to feel a bit hopeless and my times got slower every time I raced. But gradually I began to smile again in the pool and I started to believe that maybe I was capable of getting my times back down. I guess people presumed I'd retire after Tokyo [the 2020 Paralympic Games] since I reached the top and got the gold medal. But the fact that it was an empty stadium and I was only 25, I knew my body was capable of still going. And with the pandemic preventing so many people from participating in their sport, I really realised the privileged position that I was in. So I decided to stay on, decided I wanted to retire in a stadium with a full crowd and hopefully lots of Irish people in that crowd so that I can say goodbye to the sport I love in front of the people I love." (swimireland.ie, 08 Aug 2023; Instagram profile, 07 Aug 2023; thesun.ie, 20 Jul 2023) YOUNG PARALYMPIC DEBUT She says that when she made her Paralympic debut at age 13 at the 2008 Games in Beijing, she did not completely understand the magnitude of the occasion until she raced against one of her idols, South African swimmer Natalie du Toit. "I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, how bizarre it was being that young at a Paralympic Games because no one treated me any differently. The only time I remember being kind of a bit afraid and overwhelmed was at my first or second race. I was in the same heat as Natalie du Toit, my idol. She had just competed in the Beijing Olympics as well as the Paralympics and she was twice the size of me, and here's me, the little tiny yolk. That's the only time I remember feeling my age. Things that just don't affect you as much when you're young because you're just kind of living in the moment and you don't worry about things and I think that's something that I wish I still had." (paralympic.org, 16 Oct 2020) OTHER ACTIVITIES In 2023 she released a book called 'Perfectly Imperfect'. "I wrote 'Perfectly Imperfect' to share with you little nuggets of information that I have learnt along the way that helped me grow my confidence and learn to love my perfectly imperfect self." In October 2022 she launched a podcast called 'The D Word'. "The purpose of the pod is to give other people with different types of disabilities a voice. To show you, at the end of the day, we're all just people. We need you to hear us." (Instagram profile, 17 Jan 2024; gillbooks.ie, 01 Dec 2023; ilovelimerick.ie, 03 Nov 2022; Instagram profile, 27 Oct 2022) TV APPEARANCE She competed in the Irish version of the television show 'Dancing with the Stars' in 2022, reaching the final and finishing third alongside Stephen Vincent. (evoke.ie, 28 Apr 2022; dublinlive.ie, 14 Feb 2022)