Father chronicles daughter’s journey to the Paralympics

Marin Morrison, daughter of Tiburon local Matt Morrison, qualified for the 2008 Beijing Paralympics in September following performances at the U.S. Paralympic Trials that August; she’s pictured at Beijing’s Water Cube, where swimming competitions were held. A promising youth swimmer, Marin Morrison set two national records in her para-swimming classification. She died of brain cancer in January 2009, aged 18. (via Matt Morrison)

Marin Morrison’s passion for swimming was obvious the first time she entered a pool at age 6, says her father, Matt Morrison.

“It was clear right away that she was … extraordinary for a small child, and she just loved it,” Morrison says.

By the time she turned 13, Marin’s swim times were just 1.5 seconds slower than times that would qualify swimmers for the U.S. Olympic Trials. She even beat 17-year-old Amanda Weir in a 25-yard underwater race in 2003, Sports Illustrated reported in 2009, the year before Weir won two silver medals at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Morrison says he expected his daughter to improve enough to meet those Olympic-level swimming standards by the time she turned 14, entering her freshman year of high school in the Atlanta suburbs.

“But that’s when … she was diagnosed, and the story became something very different,” he says.

Marin was diagnosed with a brain tumor during her freshman year of high school in 2005. She fought valiantly against the disease, her father says, qualifying for and participating in the 2008 Beijing Paralympics four months before she died at age 18.

Morrison, who grew up in Tiburon, chronicles his daughter’s journey in “Touched: The Marin Morrison Story.”

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