Training expenses for 2019 PARA Pan Am games, Peru

Meet 22 year old Tyson MacDonald from Tillsonburg, ON. He’s an amazing young man who’s a very talented competitive swimmer. Tyson has learning disabilities, a low IQ (under 75) and is on the Autism
Spectrum, an intellectual disability. He swims as a para swimmer in the S14 category. For most of his swimming career he swam as an able body swimmer because he wanted to challenge himself and swim
with his team mates at swim meets. As he approached the end of age group swimming, he started to consider his options for university and varsity swimming. With a lot of careful consideration, Tyson
decided to start a new chapter in his swimming career and gave para swimming a shot. He has been very successful and is a 13 time National Record holder. He was accepted at Sir Wilfred Laurier University and is now in his fourth year. Now, some of you may be wondering how he’s able to attend university considering his disabilities. That where Tyson’s commitment, determination, drive, positive attitude and hard work come into play. School has always been a challenge for him but even when it was recommended that he be put in the locally developmental stream for high school, he was determined to prove them wrong. He wants to be a teacher but was told that he wasn’t university material. Even with the deck stacked against him, he is determined to prove that he can achieve his dreams. Being on the autism spectrum, an only child, being raised by a single mom without financial support from his father and his father not even wanting to be part of his life hasn’t stopped Tyson. In fact it gives him more reasons to prove to the world that he’s not a statistic. He graduated high school as an Ontario scholar, won several scholarships and was accepted at all of the universities that he applied to. He did a victory lap and took courses on line but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he accomplished his goals. He does have a reduced work load at university partly because he’s a high level athlete and that requires a huge commitment of training in and out of the water.

At the Canada Summer Games in 2017, Tyson won 7 medals, 6 gold and 1 bronze. The bronze medal was his most meaningful medal of the meet. He learned that a Special Olympic swimmer was denied his bronze medal due to an official technical error and the decision couldn’t be reversed. Tyson took it upon himself to present his own bronze medal that he had won in the 100 fly to the swimmer that was denied receiving his bronze medal. It was a generous  and selfless gesture for Tyson to perform so that the swimmer could receive not only the medal that he deserved but the recognition for his accomplishments too. What an example of true sportsmanship!

Tyson’s ultimate goal is to represent Canada at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. He recently qualified for the national team and will be representing Canada at the 2019 PARA Pan American Games in Lima Peru in August. For Tyson to have the best shot of making the podium at this international meet, he needs to continue to train and race at top level meets leading up to the PARA Pan American Games.  This a huge expense with training costs, meet fees, travel costs and accommodations.  As part of his commitment to swimming Canada Tyson must compete at provincials in Scarborough and he will need to travel to Winnipeg for Nationals.  Please help Tyson's dreams become a reality by contributing to this young man's  swimming future. Tyson and I (his mom) thank you in advance for all of your sponsors and support.