An acquired brain injury at six changed Jasmine Greenwood's life forever, now she's preparing for the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games
Jasmine Greenwood's life changed forever when she was just a young child.
"When I was six, I acquired a brain injury," she said.
"[It] was actually through appendicitis that became septic, which is pretty uncommon.
"I ended up with two strokes in the right side of my brain, which affects the left side of my body."
She said the strokes had left her with left-side weakness and a tremor in her left hand and leg.
Greenwood said swimming had played a powerful role in her recovery.
"Walking at the time was probably harder than swimming — it was a way for me to be able to move without pain," she said.
"And also make friends with other people who had been through similar things.
"I just found my passion for it, I found that I enjoyed doing it and I liked competing, and then I started being good at it."
At just 16 years old, Greenwood won a silver medal in the 100m butterfly at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games.
Now 19, she said she was honoured to have made the squad again ahead of the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games, beginning in late August.
"It's always a privilege," Greenwood said.
"Every team I make I'm very grateful to have been selected because it is so competitive."
She won gold in the 200m medley at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games and holds five medals — four bronze and one silver — from World Para Swimming Championships.
Greenwood competes in the S10 classification, often alongside swimmers with limb differences.
"Sometimes people get a bit confused as to why," she said
"[They say] 'oh why is she competing against someone with no hand?' but that's how it's made fair.
"Because my level of impairment is the same as somebody missing a hand."
Life after swimming
Greenwood said she was currently studying psychology in Canberra while attending the Australian Institute of Sport.
"It's important for me to have something to turn to after swimming," she said.
Greenwood said she spent a lot of time at the Sydney Children's Hospital in Randwick while she recovered from her strokes, and a neuropsychologist had played an instrumental role in her recovery so she was interested in taking it full-circle.
"That would be really nice to go back there and give back and help kids who were in a similar situation to me," she said.
The future of Paralympics
Greenwood said she would be competing in the 100m butterfly and the 100m and 200m backstroke in Paris.
She said her showing a few weeks ago at the Paralympic Trials in Brisbane had given her a massive confidence boost ahead of the Paralympics.
"I'm feeling pretty confident, having swam the quickest I have in three years," Greenwood said.
"I'm feeling really happy to be back where I want to be after a couple of years of struggling a little bit and just trying to get my life sorted out with uni and school and finishing my HSC," she said.
Greenwood said the growth of the Paralympics had been amazing to see.
"I started para swimming back in 2017, which is a long time ago now, but back then we were still working on having the para swimming shown not in the ad breaks," she said.
"It's going to be great, I think it's just going to continue growing, which is exactly what the sport needs and deserves."