World-class athlete: Zalma native sets her sights on China in 2008

Jill Kennedy has stood on a podium in Athens to receive a medal.

She has competed among the best in the world in powerlifting competitions in the Middle East and Australia.

She has thrown the discus and the shot put in Finland.

She has won national championships and ranks among the best athletes in the world in her events, in her divisions.

She is an inspiration to others.

Kennedy admits it's not something she ever dreamed about while growing up in Zalma, Mo. It never crossed her mind while she was a student at Southeast Missouri State University.

Athletics didn't begin for her until she was in her mid-20s. A late bloomer? Hard to say. For some, opportunity doesn't knock until later in life.

Kennedy, 34, competes -- excels -- in the dwarf-only class of the Paralympic Games, the elite sporting event for disabled athletes. She stands 4 feet, 1 inch and weighs 91 pounds.

And her specialty has been power events -- she competed in powerlifting in the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney, Australia, before switching to track's throwing events for the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens.

"It's not something I would have ever imagined doing -- going around the world and to all different kinds of places and meeting people from a hundred different countries," Kennedy said last week in a phone interview from her home in Virginia.

"There is no experience that can compare to being on that [medal] stand and having thousands of people clapping for you because of something you did," she said. "And it's not about what you did in that split second. It's all the mornings you got up at 5 o'clock to go to the gym before work and worked out when you'd rather be in bed, or going out and throwing in the rain. It's a reward for that."

Kennedy has that competitive nature. It drives her in training for the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing, where she will try to better two bronze-medal performances in Athens.

She found it from nearly out of the blue, just as she came upon the Dwarf Athletic Association of America athletic events back in 1995.

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Kennedy had competed in sports growing up in Zalma.

"I played volleyball until junior high," she said. "After that, the other girls were so much taller than me that I couldn't compete anymore."

Athletics went to the back burner as Kennedy worked on her undergraduate degree at Southeast, then began working with the Girl Scouts.

She is now a freelance drafter, working with a schedule that gives her the flexibility to work in travel for events.

Kennedy's athletic career began with the national games for the Dwarf Athletic Association of America in conjunction with the Little People of America.

"I looked at the list of sports to see which of the sports I could prepare for since I wasn't part of a team and would be training on my own," Kennedy said. "There was volleyball, which I had played, and powerlifting.

"I went to Wal-Mart and bought some weights. I knew absolutely nothing and it was just dumb luck that I didn't hurt myself."

In competition, Kennedy broke the record for her weight division "by a lot." She then went to work with a coach to teach her proper lifting technique.

After competing at the World Powerlifting Championships in the United Arab Emerites in 1998, she earned a spot on the U.S. team for the Paralympic Games in Sydney in 2000. In the competition, in which athletes of all disabilities are divided only by gender and weight and compete in the bench press, Kennedy placed fifth in the 88-pound category by lifting 160 pounds. She finished about 22 pounds out of medal contention.

"It was nothing to sneeze at, but it's not a medal," Kennedy said.

Medals, she decided, might come easier in track and field.

"I really enjoyed powerlifting," she said, "but I felt I had a better chance to medal in throwing events. I took a year off and shifted my focus."

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Kennedy was right.

Her transition from powerlifter to thrower paid off in Athens in 2004 when she came away with two bronze medals -- for the javelin and the discus. She even finished fifth in the shot put, an event she admittedly pursues just because her competitive nature drives her to get better.

"The strength background I had built up was very useful," Kennedy said, "but it took a long time in the gym to make the transition. Instead of lifting something really heavy, instead of 85 percent capacity for 10 reps, I was lifting 45 percent capacity at a very explosive five reps.

"For a year, it felt like I wasn't doing enough in the gym even though I was probably doing too much. It was an adjustment to go from very heavy to very fast, explosive weightlifting.

Her adjustment to being a javelin thrower was easier.

"It comes pretty naturally," she said. "It's just a matter of finesse to go from good to great."

After winning two medals in 2002 at the world championships, she added two more in Athens. She placed third in the javelin with a throw of 75 feet, 8 inches. Two days later, she placed third in the discus with a distance of 63 feet, 1 inch.

"The discus is very complicated," Kennedy said. "You can't just chuck it out there. You really have to learn how to throw the discus.

"It seems like no matter how much I improve, there's always more to learn. It's a challenge, and I enjoy that."

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Kennedy is in a period of rest at the moment. She will pick up training at the end of November.

Her last major event was in August at the Open Euro Championships in Helskinki, Finland. The event did not include javelin competition, but Kennedy won a bronze in the discus and was fifth in the shot put.

"I was really disappointed in Helsinki," Kennedy said. "On the one hand, I was elated but on the other, it was pretty frustrating because in warmups I threw a world record. I would have won the meet by a meter and a half, which is pretty significant. Then I just choked."

Kennedy said her top throw in warmups was the result of a month's work with a new coach that improved her technique. She said she failed to hold that technique in competition.

But the performance fuels her passion to get better, to launch that record throw possibly next summer at a major meet in The Netherlands or in 2008 in Beijing.

"I know that I can absolutely hit that mark in the future," she said, "and hopefully do it when it counts."

She also knows there are no guarantees, that she will have to earn a spot on the U.S. team in Beijing through a points system that ranks athletes in all sports.

"It's not a play day," she said. "Not everyone gets to go. You have to meet really high standard before you go."

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With her travel to international events and to clinics and camps in the United States, Kennedy does not get many chances to return to Southeast Missouri to visit her many relatives in Zalma and Advance.

"Not often enough," she said. "It's hard with traveling overseas and to different meets and clinics here, and then to get more time off to see family."

Her father watched her compete in Australia.

Although she doesn't like doing interviews, Kennedy was willing to sit through several questions for the hometown newspaper because she knows the importance of her role as an accomplished athlete.

"I know some people enjoy the attention, but I don't," she said, "and one of the reasons I do interviews is because when I was a kid, there were very few times I would see someone on TV who looked like me. It was so neat, so wonderful to see someone who looked like me, even though half the time the story wasn't portraying the person in an empowering way.

"If I can provide that opportunity, it's a neat feeling.

"I wish I could do more to change people's attitudes. There are teachers, coaches, parents that don't see the kids as athletes. Some of the young kids I see through Paralympics, they just have so many years of athletics ahead of them, it is so exciting. I'm envious of that."