Paralympian Nathan Stein has a silver medal from the 2012 London Games that hangs around his neck near his "No Surrender" tattoo that’s inked over his heart. When the 20-year-old is questioning his strength or when things get tough, that tattoo reminds him of how far he has come in such a short time.
In 2003, when he was a student at Mount Crescent Elementary in Maple Ridge, Nathan was a budding star with both the Haney Neptunes Water Polo Club and Golden Ears United Soccer program. That is also when he found out he has osteochondritis dissecans. It is a condition where the bone at the bottom of the femur, the condyle, is underdeveloped and breaks away.
It was operated on a dozen times before the Maple Ridge Secondary graduate was classified in 2009 as an Sb9, which means a swimmer has minimal weakness affecting his legs and some deformity in his feet or minor loss of a part of a limb.
By the end of that year, despite his ever-changing abilities, he was competing for his country at the International Paralympic Committee world championships in Rio de Janeiro and broke the record by three seconds in the 100-metre breaststroke.
Before joining Team Canada, he swam for the Haney Neptunes and Surrey Knights.
Today, this 6-foot-3-inch-tall athlete’s journey is only on the starting blocks but he has already won the silver Paralympic hardware for 50-metre freestyle in 2012.
He also won the bronze medal at the 2011 Para Pan Pacific Championships. And, he holds records in the 50-metre freestyle, 50-metre butterfly, and all breaststroke records.
For Nathan, the 2012 London Paralympics was an "amazing experience." "Every moment is just so surreal, from finishing my race and getting to step on the podium,” Nathan explained.
"It is just extra incentive to try to get better, gives me more confidence in myself. It was my first Paralympics, and I can only get better," he added.