Asheville teen named to USA Paralympic National Swim Team

For as long as Emma Roberts can remember, she has been a swimmer.

“I got involved with swimming when I was really, really little,” says Roberts, a 16-year-old junior at T.C. Roberson High School. “My mom was a swimmer in college, and she helped run a summer swimming league in my neighborhood. And so swimming has always been such an important part of my life.”

But it wasn’t until November that Roberts competed in her first meet in Para swimming, a modified version of swimming for athletes with disabilities governed by the International Paralympic Committee. She was born with fibular hemimelia, a condition that resulted in a leg-length discrepancy and other issues with her right leg.

Just a few months after her Para swimming debut, Roberts got the news that she had been named to the USA Paralympic National Swim Team. “I was completely shocked,” she recalls. “It was a crazy feeling.”

Now she will compete in meets against Para swimmers from around the world and will have a chance to qualify for the World Para Swimming Championships in September in Singapore.

“Emma has been working really hard for the past couple of years to just continue improving and improving and improving,” says Kirk Hampleman, coach of the YMCA of Western North Carolina’s Piranhas Swim Team.

Xpress spoke with Roberts about her Para swimming journey, her experiences with fibular hemimelia and what’s ahead for her in 2025.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Xpress: How did you get involved with Para swimming? 

Roberts: The Piranhas Swim Club is a YMCA  swim club that I’ve been swimming with since I was in like second grade. My swim coach, his son was in Para swimming, so he knew a lot about it. He told me that he thought that I would probably qualify for Para swimming. So I went to a swim meet with him and his son in November called the Fred Lamback Paralympic Swimming Open [in Cumming, Ga.]. That was my first Para swimming meet ever. I didn’t get classified there. A Para swimming classification is basically how you determine what level of physical, visual or mental impairment you are. I then went to [the U.S. Paralympics Swimming Nationals in Orlando, Fla.] in December, and at that swim meet I got classified. And that was also when I got my times to qualify for the national team.

When did you get the news that you had made the team?

When U.S. Para swimming released the national team on their Instagram [on Feb. 9] was the first time that I realized, like, “Oh, I’m actually on a national team with Paralympians and other really incredible athletes.” I was in class with one of my friends, and so when I heard the news, I turned around and I showed her, and we just got so excited. It was a crazy feeling, and then I sent an Instagram post to my family, and they were also superexcited for me.

What’s the next step for you?

I will be going to a swim meet in April, the Para Swimming World Series in Indianapolis. I’m going to be competing with Para swim athletes from all over the world, and I’m going to be trying to make times for the World Para Swimming Championships that will be happening in September in Singapore. Also, in June they’re doing Para Nationals in Boise, Idaho. That’s a big one that I’m focusing on, too.

When were you diagnosed with fibular hemimelia? 

I had a leg-length discrepancy when I was born. My feet have always looked a little different on my right side. We always knew that something was up, but we never knew exactly what until I went and saw a specialist in Columbus, Ohio, when I was 10, and he diagnosed me there. He was like, “Have you ever heard of fibular hemimelia? She definitely has it.”

Fibular hemimelia is a condition that affects my right leg primarily. It affects a lot of different things in my right leg. I have a ball-and-socket joint in my ankle. I’m missing my ACL and my PCL in my right knee. I have a slight right leg discrepancy. It’s been corrected slightly since I was little. It would have been a 4-inch discrepancy if I hadn’t had it corrected in eighth grade. It’s less than an inch now, so it’s not really measurable, which is incredible. I also have fused bones in my foot, and I just have a general muscle impairment in my right leg, it’s just weaker than my left leg.

When did you start swimming?

For as long as I can remember. It was mostly just a form of therapy. It was a sport that I could do that was really low impact on my legs, and it was a great form of exercise. But once I got to high school, I really discovered the competitive aspect of it, and I started aiming at trying to get faster and to be better at the sport, rather than to just do it. I love my high school swim team.

What events do you swim in?

The 50m and 100m freestyle are my best two events, and then I also swim in 100s in butterfly and backstroke, and I’m also pretty good at the 200 freestyle. I like to enter as many events as I can to get a good feeling for everything and set new [personal records] and improve overall.

 Do you plan to stay involved with Para swimming?

I do. I mean, Para swimming is something that I’ve discovered so recently, but I’ve already fallen in love with it. It’s such an incredible aspect of the sport for me. There are lots of Para athletes that have been competing for years and years, and I’m hoping that that could be me. 

Swimming around all of my friends is incredible, but swimming around different Para athletes has made me feel so confident in my body, and it’s just been such an incredible experience. I always feel so much more at ease at those swim meets than I do at normal swim meets. All the people in Para swimming are so kind and so thoughtful, and I’ve already made friendships that I know will last for a really long time in just four months. It’s such an amazing environment and it’s something that I want to continue for as long as I can.