Local teenager breaks national swim record

A Houston County student swimmer is well on his way to making a name for himself. Two weeks ago, in Lewisville, Texas, 16-year-old William Rankine competed in the U.S. Paralympic National Championships and ended up breaking the men’s SB12 100-meter breast stroke national record.

The Paralympics,

parallel with the Olympics, is designed for elite level athletes from 10 categories of impairment: impaired muscle power, impaired range of movement, limb deficiency, leg length difference, short stature, hypertonia, ataxia, athetosis, vision impairment and intellectual disability. 

Rankine explained that with swimming, there are different classifications. Classifications 1 through 10 are designated for physical impairments, Classifications 11 through 13 are for visual impairments and 14 is for intellectual impairments. Rankine broke the record for SB12 100-meter breaststroke at one minute 19 seconds 20 milliseconds, competing in the visual impairments classification.

“We didn’t realize it until the next day,” admitted Rankine while laughing. “So that was really cool.”

Due to the pandemic, many meets had been postponed or were scarce to account for public safety. He mentioned having the opportunity to do several short course meets with Houston County High School, but the doing long course competitions felt very different. Rankine explained that long course pools are 50 meters long and are what the Olympics, Paralympics and other larger competitions use, while short course pools are only 25 yards and are generally used for school meets. 

The length difference is significant, and currently, Rankine must travel all the way to Atlanta to train in the larger pools due to the lack of facilities available locally. The Warner Robins City Council recently approved a $7 million natatorium project to begin construction. The natatorium has the opportunity to make a huge impact on the public and swimmers such as Rankine and his teammates.

“We just really want them to build a long course pool in the natatorium so we would be able to have that and get used to practicing in that.”

He confessed that he prefers swimming in the long course over the short course because the latter requires more turns. Rankine admitted that the long course is ideal for him personally due to his visual impairments. He explained that as he approaches a wall, he gets a tap to let him know that he is close to prepare himself for the impact.

“I was born with a genetic disorder that caused my vision to progressively get worse,” shared Rankine. “So I’ve lost my vision as I’ve gotten older.”

Rankine has been swimming competitively since he was only eight years old after he joined the Warner Robins Aquanauts. Catching the love for the water and influenced and encouraged by his mother, Wendy Rankine, he began training. The loss of his vision wasn’t going to keep Rankine from working hard and doing what he loves.

“I wanted a sport that didn’t have to have a lot of adaptations. A lot of the other sports…you have to change a lot of the rules of the game to be able to play it. And for swimming, all I really had to have was a tapper to let me know where the wall is. I enjoy being able to compete without having to change it as much,” he shared.

Wendy shared that her son has a very independent mindset, revealing that he initially didn’t want to go the Paraswimming route at all because he didn’t want to be different. After encouraged to join a competition two years ago, Rankine found that “all of a sudden he was there and he wasn’t different because everyone was different.”

The Warner Robins Aquanauts coach, Wes Hamborg, has been a significant impact on Rankine as he has progressed through the sport. Wendy attested to Hamborg’s patience, saying, “He’s a great coach. He’s very patient and willing to learn. He wants to make them better not just in the pool, but in life.”

Rankine is currently the only swimmer on the Aquanauts team with a registered disability. However, many of his teammates have become some of his best friends and Rankine expressed his appreciation for all of their help and support.

Rankine will continue his training as the next Paralympics competitions approaches in June in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Swimming all three days of the competition, he will be competing in the preliminaries and subsequently the finals. According to Wendy, to qualify for the Tokyo Paralympics, Rankine must beat his current time by three seconds and finish at one minute and 16 seconds.

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