Beverly Paralympic Swimmer Enjoys Remarkable Gold Rush On World Stage

BEVERLY, MA — Leanne Smith graduated from Beverly High School in 2007 as an accomplished gymnast, and a soccer and a softball player, who never swam competitively in her life.

Three years later, the lifelong athlete was blindsided with a facial paralysis, numbness, tingling and muscle weakness diagnosed through a long process as a rare neurological muscle disease called dystonia, which causes involuntary muscle movements.

Rather than retreat from athletics, Smith dove into the pool as part of her aquatic rehabilitation program in 2013. Despite facing more challenges when she was hospitalized with seizures a year later, she made her way back into the water and soon began competing as a Paralympian while also becoming a swim instructor at the Beverly YMCA.

Last summer, she traveled to the Tokyo Summer Games where she returned with a silver medal in the 100-meter freestyle.

Two weeks ago, she traveled to the Para World Championships in Madeira, Portugal and this time returned with seven gold medals, three world records, six championship records, three American records and the most gold out of any of the more than 500 male and female athletes at the Championships.

On Thursday, as part of World Paralympic Day, she brought her stunning haul of international gold to the Beverly YMCA where she was able to show off her medals to her young swimmers.

"I hope they see that life can throw hard things your way and it's ultimately your choice whether you want to overcome those obstacles or whether you are going to let those obstacles define you," Smith told Patch. "There are moments where I have fallen into both categories. But it's great that they can see me as a successful athlete who was able to break through the barriers in front of me."

Smith said the day was special because it allowed everyone at the Beverly YMCA to see the full picture of what she has become through the efforts she puts in around the pool every day.

"Half of the Y knows me as an athlete that trains there and half of the Y sees me as a coach on deck," she said. "There are members who only see me training and kids who only see me on deck. It's a unique for them all to see me at the same time balancing a full-time coaching career with a full-time swimming career."

Smith said she traveled to Portugal feeling confident that she was in a strong position for a breakthrough. Typically, she is able to swim in three or four events each competition but at the World Championships they opened up the classifications so that she was able to compete in six individual events and as a member of the United States' "A" Relay.

"There were not too many expectations beyond the races I normally do," she said. "But once the momentum got rolling it just kept going. It was nice to see all the different races and be able to experience the podium in so many events."

She said the experience in Portugal was far different than her Paralympics in Tokyo after those Summer Games were postponed a year because of the onset of the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic and held with strict rules in 2021 as Japan managed the latest outbreak of the virus.

"A lot of athletes were just relieved that we were going to be able to show off the work we had put in for five years at that point," she said of the competitions that were held in empty arena with no fans. "Everywhere was locked down and restricted. You were waiting to find out where we could go and what we were going to be doing with the protocols. It all depended on that date.

"But it wound up being a positive experience and to be able to show the world what we had worked so hard for was amazing."

Along with her coaching duties in Beverly, Smith now had a busy competition schedule in front of her with two big national events in California and North Carolina this fall and two big international events leading up to the trials for the 2024 Paralympic Summer Games in France.

"I will go for it in Paris," she said. "Being in my early 30s, Los Angeles (in 2028) is probably off the table.

"But Paris I feel more confident about that hopefully I can go there and end (my swimming career) on a high note."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)