McKenzie Coan continues to defy the chances.

When she was identified at simply 19 days previous with osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic dysfunction characterised by bones that break simply, Coan’s mother and father, Marc and Teresa, had been advised that their daughter can be unable to sit down, stand, stroll, and even maintain up her head on her personal.

Final Monday — in the future earlier than her twenty sixth birthday — Coan captured her third consecutive world championship within the 400-meter freestyle on the Para Swimming World Championships in Madeira, Portugal. The 2018 Loyola Maryland graduate already owns gold medals within the occasion from the Paralympic Video games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and Tokyo in 2021.

Coan added a world title within the 50 freestyle Friday and 100 freestyle a day later, a bronze medal within the 100 backstroke Wednesday and a silver medal within the blended 400 freestyle relay Saturday.

“By no means in my wildest goals did I feel I might be sitting right here in Portugal as a three-peat world champion on this occasion,” she wrote by way of electronic mail. “I like the 400 freestyle, and in a way, I actually consider I used to be born to swim it.”

Coan’s domination within the 400 is likely to be the least stunning improvement to her coach Brian Loeffler, who helms the lads’s and ladies’s swimming and diving applications at Loyola.

“I see it each day within the pool,” Loeffler stated. “She’s obtained an unimaginable work ethic, an infectious smile, an upbeat persona. She not often has a day without work the place she’s not attempting to get to a excessive degree and the place she’s not excited to work.”

Coan competes as a swimmer within the S7, SB6 and SM7 classifications, which embody amputees, in addition to athletes with cerebral palsy, spinal twine accidents and different impairments.

Coan — who stated she was impressed to take up swimming after watching Jessica Lengthy, one other Paralympic swimmer from Baltimore, accumulate 51 gold medals on the Paralympic and world championship ranges — has already exhilarated the subsequent era of swimmers.

“I used to be standing up cheering the entire race and had anyone describing to me every stroke she took and telling me her splits so I might maintain observe of her whereas she was racing,” stated Greyhounds junior swimmer McClain Hermes, who accompanied Coan to Portugal and is blind in her proper eye and has restricted imaginative and prescient in her left. “I do know that she is able to wonderful issues, and he or she confirmed such grit and dedication going on the market and crushing the race. McKenzie by no means lets any adversity or impediment cease her. She is an inspiration and hero to me.”

Coan’s journey is outstanding contemplating her beginnings. She was born in Georgia undersized and underweight regardless of being an virtually full-term toddler and with a damaged femur. A number of days later, her mom heard a snap whereas she was burping her daughter, who was later identified at an space hospital with a damaged arm.

Regardless of the osteogenesis imperfecta analysis, Coan credited her mother and father with treating her as they did her two older brothers, Grant and Eli.

“I do know it needed to be scary for my mother and father, however they had been decided I might have each alternative to succeed, and I’m very grateful for that,” Coan stated. “They by no means allowed me to really feel any completely different from different children or my two brothers and taught me that my OI is a blessing, not a curse.”

Coan’s physique may be very inclined to harm. She stated she has suffered not less than 100 fractures, together with breaking a bone whereas folding garments. Hermes stated she felt responsible when she made Coan snigger and he or she dropped a water bottle on her foot main to a different fracture, and Loeffler stated Coan solely reintroduced the backstroke to her swimming routine about 18 months in the past due to the stress the motion was inserting on her ribs.

Regardless of all of it, Coan stated she was not deterred in her need to swim, which she started doing in 2001.

“There have been tough moments with my illness, little question, however I see the fantastic thing about the challenges that accompany it,” she stated. “Each fracture is the chance to return out stronger on the opposite facet of it. I at all times say I might have a look at my OI as one thing that occurred to me or one thing that occurred for me. I’ll at all times select the latter.”

Hermes, who completed fourth within the 100 backstroke S11 and fifth within the 100 freestyle S11, has identified Coan for practically 10 years as they’re each from Georgia and swam for a similar Paralympic developmental group and coach. Hermes stated coaching with Coan has given her a glimpse into Coan’s dedication.

Loeffler, who found Coan at regional Paralympic meets when she was of highschool age, stated Coan has a powerful higher physique that permits her to push by a major quantity of water in her races. Though she makes use of a wheelchair in her each day life, Loeffler stated it’s extra of a protecting measure to forestall a fall or collision that might result in extra damaged bones.

“I might say that is the case for most individuals with bodily disabilities, they simply wish to be seen as regular,” Loeffler stated of athletes like Coan. “They don’t need any particular consideration. They need it to be honest. So I do assume that she tries to take care of a standard life-style and do regular issues.”

Coan, who swam for the Greyhounds in twin meets and on the Easteron School Athletic Convention championships, credited the college with shaping her into the individual she is at present. That included permitting her to finish work forward of time or meet for workplace hours to accommodate her swimming schedule.

“I at all times say that being a D-I athlete, full-time pupil, and nationwide group member concurrently would be the most difficult and rewarding factor I’ve ever finished,” she stated.

When she returns from Portugal, Coan plans to attend the College of Baltimore Legislation College in pursuit of a level in civil rights with a give attention to incapacity advocacy. She admitted that she is puzzled to explain her newest achievement.

“Essentially the most correct method I can put it’s it introduced me again to the enjoyment I had as a toddler racing in my favourite occasion, solely this time, I had turn out to be the perfect on this planet,” she stated. “Standing on the rostrum with a gold medal because the nationwide anthem performs is a second without end ingrained in my coronary heart and thoughts. After I want energy earlier than a race, notably in one thing as lengthy and demanding as a 400, I consider that.”

Exterior of the pool, Coan has constructed partnerships with adidas, Lending Tree, and some different sponsors. She has additionally been tapped to talk at summits, launched a company known as “Kenzie Kares” that seeks to help youngsters with life-threatening situations in U.S. hospitals and penned in 2021 a memoir titled “Breaking Free: Shattering Expectations and Thriving with Ambition in Pursuit of Gold.”

Loeffler known as it “tremendous rewarding” to witness Coan’s evolution.

“For her to even have knowledgeable life outdoors of swimming by her story and success, I discover that rewarding as effectively,” he stated, “as a result of loads of athletes aren’t ready to try this.”