Jessica Rogers competed in the Canadian/American Paralympic Nationals in San Antonio, Texas March 24-26th. The event included celebrated Paralympic swimmers such as Erin Popovich and Jessica Long, as they attempted to qualify for selection to the USA world team for the upcoming International Paralympic Committee championships in the Netherlands. Even though the Can-Am meet is a national event combined for USA and Canadian swimmers with physical disabilities, swimmers from Mexico, Colombia, Canada, Turkey and even Azerbijan came to compete.
Jessica Rogers entered the meet ranked 12th in the world, 1st in the US, in breast stroke. Jessica hoped to bring home a gold medal, and that's exactly what she did; two of them: the 100m and the 200m breast stroke. Her final event, the 200M breast stroke, was definitely her best technical swim as she achieved near perfect negative split times-touching out the competition for a first place finish. Her 100 M event was also an exciting swim. To view her 100 M Breast race click here.
Jessica has dropped 29 seconds off of her 100 M breast stroke time in the past 7 months as she added more practices to her weekly schedule including long course practices at Wakefield. As a result, she moved into 8th ranked position in the world .
Jessica achieved best times in all of her events. She plans to swim in similar meets in Ohio, Chicago, and Canada this year and next, before she moves on to the paraolympic trails in 2012.
Congratulations, Jessica!
