![]() Sapp started swimming at age 4 with the Smallwood Village Swim Club in Waldorf and “was horrible” in the beginning, Dee says, laughing. Plus, Sapp seemed to like swimming the most. “We were looking for a sport that he could participate in that was nonverbal, and swimming is literally four strokes,” she explains. Team sports proved to be more confusing for him, Dee says, due to the verbal commands. He swam, played soccer and basketball, and skied during the winter. It was also around this time that Sapp’s parents introduced him to sports. Prior to that, his parents would communicate with him in American Sign Language so he could express his basic needs. Doctors diagnosed him with a developmental delay around the age of 2, and he started talking between the ages of 2 and 3, Dee says. When Sapp was younger, Dee remembers her son, the second of her three children, being nonverbal. “I want to win gold at the Paralympics show the whole world who I am,” Sapp says. He will compete in the 100-meter butterfly, 100-meter backstroke, and 200-meter individual medley in Tokyo. Paralympic swimming trials in June in Minneapolis, Sapp broke the American record in the event- one of three American records he set at the trials. In the past few years, he has set nearly a dozen American records in the S14 classification and enters the Paralympics with the fourth-fastest qualifying time in the men’s 100-meter butterfly. Sapp was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder when he was 17. He will compete in the S14 classification, for swimmers with an intellectual impairment, and is one of the first two male athletes with intellectual impairments to qualify to swim at the Paralympics for Team USA, according to Erin Popovich, the director of Paralympic swimming with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. 5, as one of the 34 swimmers representing Team USA. Next month, the 19-year-old will head to the Tokyo Paralympics, held from Aug. ![]() ![]() Sapp’s family and friends see him as a trailblazer and inspiration. “And he doesn’t give up.” His coach, Jeff King, credits Sapp with making all of the swimmers around him better competitors and people with his mantra of giving his best every day. “It’s go fast and hold on,” Sapp’s close friend and teammate Patrick Andrews says. “He’s the first one at the pool, last one to leave type of athlete … I mean, if we told him he was gonna miss practice, he would be furious.”Įven among the highly accomplished swimmers that compete for NCAP, including Olympians, Sapp stands out. “He’s always been a very disciplined student of swimming,” says Sapp’s father, Carlton. This has been his typical routine for the past six years. After a quick breakfast of a banana or yogurt, Sapp and his mother, Dee, head to the Lee District Rec Center in Alexandria from their home in Waldorf, Maryland, for swim practice with the Nation’s Capital Swim Club from 4:30 to 6 a.m. Every weekday morning, Lawrence Sapp sets his alarm for 3 a.m.
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