{"id":23337,"date":"2019-03-21T18:38:35","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T22:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23337"},"modified":"2019-03-21T18:38:44","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T22:38:44","slug":"unstoppable-tracy-proves-anything-is-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/unstoppable-tracy-proves-anything-is-possible\/","title":{"rendered":"Unstoppable Tracy proves \u201canything is possible\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it\u2019s tying\nyour shoe, rising through the ranks to become a World Cup sailor, or climbing\nthe Himalayas, Tracy Schmitt has dedicated her life to proving anything is\npossible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Canadian woman\nwho was born a four-way amputee has shared her inspiring message alongside the\nlikes of Jane Fonda and shared her story with Oprah, but Ms. Schmitt got up\nclose and personal with some of Aurora\u2019s youngest residents, speaking before\nkids at the Aurora Children\u2019s Centre over March Break on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was lucky enough\nto be born a four-way amputee,\u201d Ms. Schmitt shared with The Auroran ahead of\nmeeting the kids. \u201cEvery time people say, \u2018Oh, I don\u2019t think you can do that,\u2019\nI learned to shut that down. I thought, \u2018I can eat with a spoon. Of course, I\ncan go play on the lawn with those kids.\u2019 Everyone was saying, \u2018I don\u2019t think\nyou can do that,\u2019 or, \u2018I\u2019m not sure, it might be hard,\u2019 or, \u2018You have no hands,\nhow are you going to use scissors?\u2019 I learned that because I was born with no\nhands or legs that I had to not listen to those things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I wanted to do\nit, I had to make it happen because everyone around me was going to be loving\nand careful and want to set me up for success by avoiding failure, but that\ndoesn\u2019t work because you have to fail to figure it out. A success is just\nsomeone who didn\u2019t let failure stop them, someone who just tried one more time.\nI was just lucky to be born limb-itless. It gave me an advantage \u2013 it gave me a\nleg up!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed it has \u2013 from\nthe earliest age, Ms. Schmitt has been dedicated to proving the naysayers\nwrong. Standing at the head of the gym on her prosthetic legs, she said she\nwanted to have some special time with the kids before she began her talk,\nconscious, she said, that some kids might be initially afraid of what they saw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There didn\u2019t\nhowever, seem to be any trepidation in the dozens of young eyes that \u201cthe\nUnstoppable Tracy\u201d kept transfixed as she told them of taking her first strides\nas a young student, defying the expectations of her principal, and going from\nstrength to strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some ways, these\nearly experiences set something of a tone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born with a love for\nthe sea, Tracy did everything she could to be in the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to\nmastering scuba diving and learning how to waterski on a knee board, she had a\nparticular love of sailing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I started, I\nwas always falling out of the boat, but I just kept getting back in,\u201d said Ms.\nSchmitt, who was born with legs that stop just above the knee and arms that end\njust below the elbow. \u201cIt never entered my mind not to be sailing. I knew how\nto sail, I just didn\u2019t know how to stay in the boat! Once I learned how to\nbalance, the rest is history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That might be something\nof an understatement, as this history is quite a storied one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harbouring a Paralympic dream,\nTracy decided to load up the car and head to Miami. Her goal was to meet\nOlympic Gold Medallist Magnus<\/em> Liljedahl and learn from the master on the\nroad to the Paralympic Trials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first, Magnus didn\u2019t know\nwhat to do with her as, one, sailing was a very male-dominated sport and,\nsecond, she was a four-way amputee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI figure who you surround\nyourself with is who you become, so I wanted to surround myself with Gold\nMedal-winning able-bodied Olympians and really fantastic sailors,\u201d she said.\n\u201cMany of my competitors in the Paralympic world have disabilities, but they\nwere sailors in the able-bodied world first. Very few of them were born this\nway like I am, so I thought if I am going to beat them I have to surround\nmyself with what\u2019s an even further stretch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a tough road, however. To\nprove to Magnus that she wasn\u2019t just a \u201cflash in the pan\u201d she did a lot of the\ngrunt work associated with the sport, including cleaning the boats, to prove\nthat she wouldn\u2019t be disillusioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter three months of sleeping\nin my car, eventually something came up on the dock and I was \u2018Tracy to the\nRescue\u2019 and Magnus could finally see I could sail. Because of Magnus\u2019 distinction, we ended up touching every single boat in the\nOlympics and the Paralympics in London 2012, and Rio 2016. I supported him in\nmy administrative support in getting Paralympic Sports Club status. We became\nParalympic Sports Club status Team Paradise. We supported all sailors with or\nwithout disabilities for the Olympics and the Paralympics. It wasn\u2019t my known journey;\nI went out there because I wanted to represent Canada and, instead, I ended up\nsupporting Magnus and all sailors growing into this Paralympic Sports Club that\nwas international, and we supported Olympic sailors too. I didn\u2019t make it to\nthe Paralympics. I did make it to London\u2019s and Rio\u2019s trials and I made it to\nWorld Cup regattas where I sailed against 27 able-bodied men and only three\ngirls, and I was the only one with no hands and no legs. It was a great\njourney, but my journey was bigger. It wasn\u2019t \u2018Unstoppable Tracy\u2019, it was\n\u2018Unstoppable You.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI went down to be\nwith Magnus and everything blew up massive. I just wanted to be a sailor, but\nwhat I didn\u2019t realise is the impact it has on others. It is not inspiration, it\nis more than inspiration because it is life-changing, actionable. People\nlisten, they hear it, they go away and sail the race of their life, but a child\nthinks, \u2018I can do this! I can tie a shoelace! I can be a ballerina even if I am\nsuper-tall. I can be a basketball player even if I am tiny. It doesn\u2019t matter\nif I am black or white. It doesn\u2019t matter if I am lesbian, gay, bi, trans,\nqueer, it doesn\u2019t matter if I have a disability or not, it doesn\u2019t matter if I\nam a female in a male-dominated sport.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The message is simple: Nobody left behind.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether it\u2019s tying your shoe, rising through the ranks to become a World Cup sailor, or climbing the Himalayas, Tracy Schmitt has dedicated her life to proving anything is possible. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019-03-21-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-64p","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 08:26:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}