Wilmington swimmer hopes to make Olympic Trials
WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Striving to become the best has been a way of life for one Wilmington athlete. He grew up loving the sport of swimming but in 2013, he suffered a neck injury that put his dreams in jeopardy.
“My goal was just to recover faster and get back to normal,” Swimmer Cyrus Hashemi said.
You would never guess by watching Hashemi swim that only a few months ago he was dealing with a major injury.
“I went from being an extreme athlete to not being able to do a single push up,” he said.
Whether it was a pool, ocean, or lake, Hashemi has always loved being in the water. He has competitively swimming since he was 10 and became a national-level swimmer when he was a teen.
He spent a year on the UNCW swimming and diving team in 2013, but shortly after was faced with a neck injury.
“Five screws, one in the center and a titanium plate and then my C67 doesn’t not rotate so my neck rotates at one less degree which makes swimming a little bit more difficult but it’s not, not anything else I can’t get past,” Hashemi said.
It was two long years of recovery, but now he’s back in the water.
“I swim with a t-shirt on, I pull a pair of shoes, I do stuff with bungee cord, lots of drill work, a lot of focusing in and balancing out the stroke and actually fixing my injured muscle more than anything,” he said.
Practicing five to nine times a week, he is hoping to get one step closer to his life-long goal.
“When I was younger, I always said I wanted to be a gold medalist at the Olympics,” Hashemi said. “That’s ultimately always everyone’s goal when they start a sport, they want to be the best, they want to be the champion and that’s how I was and that’s how I am.”
He says his road to recovery is like a game. He said he’d compete against himself and strive to get better and be better.
“If I went to the pool, I did one extra kick off the wall, or breath one last time,” Hashemi said. “If I went to the weight room, I did one extra rep and made sure every day I made an improve in one week part of my body.”
After training for six months, he will attend the Olympic Trial Cuts in Cary hoping to be on the road to Rio.
Cyrus does have a GoFundMe campaign to help with travel expenses for the Olympic Trial Cuts next Friday in Cary. He has almost met his goal.
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