Way to help
Liz Baker has a personal USABA page that explains more about her condition and her conquests and gives people a chance to contribute to her considerable expenses for competition. It is http://bit.ly/LizBakerUSABA.
For Elizabeth "Liz" Baker of Signal Mountain, seeing poorly means just more believing.
And achieving.
Baker, 42, will be plunging into the dirty water off Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Beach on Sept. 11 for her triathlon in the 2016 Paralympic Games. She's one of 10 members of the United States team in the debut of the three-discipline sport at the competition for people with various disabilities and impairments.
The participants will swim 750 meters, ride bicycles 20 kilometers and run a 5k.
Two months before the competition, USA Triathlon assigned her a new guide - elite professional triathlete Jillian Petersen of Seattle - in trying to help the 5-foot-1 Baker earn a medal at Rio.
Baker's disability is visual, which is quite a problem for someone trying to swim, ride a bike and run in a crowd but not enough to keep her from running races of varying lengths. At Rio all the visually impaired women will compete together but with those who merely can distinguish dark from light getting a 3.48-minute head start over Baker and the others.
Afflicted in her youth with Stargardt's disease, which has created scars blocking the centers of her retinas, Baker had a major decline in her sight when she was 19 and a student at the University of Georgia. She went then from "like 20/60" vision to "20/120 or 20/140," she said.
Decline has continued but at a much slower rate, and it is not stopping Baker, who was propelled into international competition by an impressive finish in the 2014 Chattanooga Ironman. Despite a late, late forced adjustment in how she was allowed to race, she finished the full Ironman in less than 12 hours and won the "physically challenged" category, and someone suggested she throw herself into paratriathlons.
Coach Andy Sweet "was incredible" as her guide in the Ironman with just a couple of weeks of practice together, "and it ended up being so fun," Baker said.
Once she got opportunities, she quickly excelled in international points events with Helen Phipps of San Antonio or fellow Chattanooga physical therapist - and Ironman World Championship qualifier - Sara Gibson serving as her required same-gender guide. That involves being tethered during the swim and run and riding a tandem bike, all with strict restrictions.
Other than the training she put herself through, Baker's biggest challenge was getting to compete.
"You can't get into races if you don't have any points - there are limited slots - and I was starting with no points," she said. "I sort of thought I had no chance, but things started opening up."
Baker got a foot in the door with a second-place finish in her category in the USA Paratriathlon nationals in May 2015, and she finished second again in her first International Triathlon Union world event three months later, in Detroit. Then she won the CAMTRI American Championships this past March in Sarasota, Fla., and an ITU world race six weeks later in Penrith, Australia, and finished second in May in Yokohama, Japan, but she said she still has not faced some of the best competitors she will encounter in Rio.
"I'm so new I haven't raced against all of them," Baker said. "I would be amazed with a medal. Those women around the world are really strong. My goal is for every race I do to be my best race."
A Massachusetts native who grew up in Roswell, Ga., and came to Chattanooga in 2001 after physical therapy school, she said she always has enjoyed competition. That goes back to swimming and diving as a young child and moving on to gymnastics until middle school, when she shifted to soccer and mixed that with cheerleading.
She started doing triathlons in 2004 and ran her first marathon in 2007, but for years she didn't reveal to anyone involved that her vision was impaired.
Besides training in at least one of the three triathlon disciplines seven days a week, Baker works from home reviewing physical therapy charts. And she cherishes time with her family: husband Brian and children Andrew, 9, and Eliza, 7.
Brian grew up in Chattanooga but followed graduation from the University of Tennessee with time living in Nashville and New York. They met soon after he moved back to his hometown, Liz said, and were married in August 2005.
She wants to be in the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Chattanooga next spring but has doubts about keeping up the required training regimen for the next Paralympics in 2020.
"I'll be kind of old then," she said with a smile, "and I hope we have some younger women coming along by then to represent our country. I do think it would be fun to compete again next year when the pressure won't be so strong - there are a couple of neat places I'd like to go - but I'd also like to have my husband get his turn after the sacrifices he's made for me."
It's been an expensive undertaking. The national organization takes care of costs involved with going to the Paralympics - including sending Liz to Seattle to stay and work with Petersen next week and putting the team up in Pensacola, Fla., the week before Rio - but expenses otherwise, including trips to Australia and Japan, are borne by the competitors, for them and their guides.
Liz had to go to Australia to be checked by two doctors for international certification.
After her visit and intensive training with Petersen next week, they will compete as a Rio tune-up in the USA nationals Aug. 14 in Santa Cruz, Calif. Then Baker will get to be home for a couple of weeks before heading to Pensacola on Aug. 30.
"We're in the red zone for training for Rio," she said Wednesday. "Jillian and I have been in touch - we've done a lot via text - and I'm sure I'll get to know her very, very well next week."
Without citing specific places, she said she suspects that some of the water in which she has competed is as polluted as the much-publicized Rio venue.
"And I don't expect to be in the water more than 15 minutes anyway," she said, noting also that she's not concerned by the Zika virus because she doesn't plan to have more children.
Her husband has backed her all the way.
"I'm extremely proud of the amount of time and effort she has dedicated to making the first-ever Paralympic triathlon team," Brian said. "When we started this journey a little over a year ago, we were told it would be nearly impossible for her to qualify. But that didn't stop her from trying, just like her visual impairment doesn't stop her from doing anything she sets her mind to.
"I know her determination and perseverance is inspirational to our family and friends, and I hope she inspires others, disability or not, to go for whatever goal they've set for themselves but might be a little afraid to start."
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.