David Abrahams is willing to freely admit that his collegiate swimming career didn’t always go according to plan: A chronic hip injury that limited his training time at Harvard, not to mention losing an entire season to the COVID-19 pandemic, clouded certain aspects of the Haverford High School graduate’s swimming career.
But as soon as that happened, something else blossomed, and when the calendar turns to 2024 and Abraham can plan the end of his swimming career, that’s the direction he’ll focus his passion.
Abraham will wrap up his swimming career this month at his second Paralympic Games. As captain of the U.S. team, he will retrace his journey in the pool from when he lost his sight as a teenager to graduating from Harvard and working as a mathematical analyst at an investment fund.
“I’ve always wanted to end swimming on a positive note,” Abrahams said recently, “and because swimming has been such an important part of so many parts of my life, I thought the best thing to do would be to end it on a positive note and remember what I love about the sport.”
Getting there in 2024 required renewed focus. Abraham has had a familiar battle in college, trying to get back to the times he recorded early in his career. He ran 55.06 seconds in the 100 breaststroke, his specialty event, as a high school student. He ran 55.98 seconds as a freshman in 2019-20, but that season was cut short by the pandemic and then the Ivy League canceled the 2020-21 collegiate season.
For athletes who suffer from chronic hip pain and limited range of motion, spending more time in college isn’t necessarily an advantage.
“I went to the doctor and he said the worst move was my breaststroke kick,” Abrahams said. “It’s my specialty, so that’s why I love the sport.”
As a senior, with limited breaststroke kicks, Abrahams was determined to persevere. His first goal was to maximize time with his Harvard peers. He helped Harvard win its seventh consecutive Ivy League title. His best time in the 100 meters, 56.23, was his fastest since his freshman year. After the Ivy League championships, his attention shifted to long-distance training, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, competing at the Paralympic Trials, and now on his way to Paris.
Para swimming was an outlet for the frustrations of his college days. He felt like he was stagnating among his able-bodied peers, but he steadily improved as he competed in international competitions. While on leave from Harvard in 2021, Abrahams realized his Paralympic dream, winning a silver medal in the men’s SB13 100m breaststroke and placing fourth in the SM13 200m individual medley.
Abraham began losing his eyesight due to Stargardt disease when he was 12. The disease progressed rapidly throughout his teenage years, leaving him with severe vision problems throughout his career as an All-Delco athlete with the Ford Brothers. It took him years to realize the opportunity to compete in para swimming, but that process of self-acceptance was a crucial part of his development.
“I had been in denial for a long time about the fact that this was a part of me and my vision, and I didn’t find out about the Paralympics until much later,” he said. “So it was a simultaneous process of embracing my situation and getting to the next level, and it all culminated in my experience in Tokyo, where I felt free of the disabilities I’d been given, while also achieving the honor of competing for the United States, which had been a lifelong goal.”
Abraham didn’t just participate, he starred: In addition to his Paralympic silver medal, he won a bronze medal in the 100m breaststroke at the 2023 World Para Aquatics Championships in Manchester, England, where he was voted captain by his teammates and was thrilled by the honor.
Abrahams felt that pride anew when he did the same in Paris, joined by three-time Paralympians Hannah Aspden and Lizzy Smith, and four-time Paralympian Evan Austin.
“It’s hard to put into words,” he said. “Being captain at the world championships was a big deal, obviously, but it’s every swimmer’s dream to compete on this stage, and it was a big honor, obviously, but it was also unexpected because it’s the Paralympics, which is a much bigger event and there are a lot more swimmers from the U.S. competing.”
“It’s really comforting to know that it’s not just a coincidence that my teammates see me that way. I’m very honored to be in this position.”
He plans to swim with his family in the stands for a time. Tokyo has been unusual in many ways, pale in comparison to the experience he hopes to have in Paris. Abrahams’ family and some of his closest friends from Haverford will be in Japan to accompany him on his final swim, in an atmosphere very different from the empty arena in Tokyo.
The Paralympics will be Abraham’s final Games before he takes a job at Boston-based MFS Investment Management, one of the oldest asset management firms in the United States, where he interned last year, modeling investment risk for the fund. “I never imagined I’d end up with a job that so closely matches my interests,” Abraham said.
Abrahams has approached the final stages of his career in a way that suits the many facets of his personality: the math major has compartmentalized milestones along the way, from enjoying his time at Harvard to qualifying for Paris. There’s a breaststroker’s logic to his training methods: less is more, if you make the most of each session in the grand scheme of things.
“This is a culmination of not only my work, but the support of my family and friends,” he said, “so to be able to share that feeling of accomplishment with them in that moment and not just feel like I’m walking around trying to keep six feet away from everyone and calling my parents from my room every night, this is something I’ve always wanted to experience.”
First published: August 25, 2024, 7:01 PM
