Blake

Adams

Name: Blake Adams
Current Residence: Colorado Springs, Colo.

Career Highlights

• Current U.S. record-holder in his class (S13) in several short course distances: 50-, 100- and 200-yard breaststroke; 50, 100 and 200 backstroke; 50 and 100 butterfly; 100, 200 and 400 IM; and 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000 and 1650 freestyle
• Current U.S. record-holder in his class in 50-, 200- and 800-meter freestyle, 50-meter breaststroke (long course)
• 2013: Named to U.S. Paralympics Swimming Emerging Team
• 2013 Spring Can-Am: 1st place in 50-, 100- and 200m breaststroke
• 2013 Jimi Flowers Classic: 1st place in  50-, 100- and 400m freestyle, 100m butterfly and 100m breaststroke
• 2012 U.S. Paralympic Swimming Trials: 1st place 50-, 100- and 400m freestyle, 100m butterfly and 100m breaststroke
• 2009: International Blind Sports Federation World Youth and Student Championships and 2009 IBSA Pan American Games: three 2nd-place finishes, four 3rd -place finishes

Adams is a lifelong swimmer, having taken his first swim lesson at age three and competed in his first meet in sixth grade. In the months leading up to his residency at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Adams was competing with the Atlantis Swim Federation in Faribault, Minn. Adams is a graduate of Lakeville North High School in Lakeville, Minn., and a former member of the South Metro Storm Swim Club in Lakeville. He has been legally blind since birth due to a congenital eye condition called aniridia, making it difficult for him to see details beyond the black stripe and cross on the bottom of the pool.

Adams tried out for a spot on the U.S. teams for both the 2008 and 2012 Paralympic Games and was just seconds short each year. Now, Adams is a member of the 2013 U.S. Paralympics Swimming Emerging Team and a U.S. record-holder in several sprint and distance events in various strokes in his classification.