Paralympian Competes for Top Spot on U.S. Team - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Paralympian Competes for Top Spot on U.S. Team

90 swimmers from across the country are training right now in Bismarck to represent the United States.

These athletes are the best in the nation and will soon compete for a spot on the U.S. team that swims in London during the Olympics.

He's been swimming competitively since he was nine years old, when he found out he was in a battle for his life.

"I had really bad asthma at the time, so my mom wanted me to get swimming so I could do a sport and get better, at the time I was doing baseball and football and had asthma attacks, when I was diagnosed with mitochondrial myopathy, I was told swimming was the only sport I could do." says paralympian, Joe Wise.

"Joe's like a real humble guy and when you talk to him, you see him, you'd really never know that he has this disease, it's a life threatening disease." says Brian Loeffler/Joe's swim coach.

Joe struggles with a severe muscular disorder and uses a life support ventilator which helps him breathe because his lungs are so weak.

"During any bad news it's frightening, when I was diagnosed, the doctor told my parents that I would die at 15, hearing those words frightened myself and my family." says Wise.

Instead, at the age of 15 Joe was the youngest athlete to compete in the Paralympics Games in Beijing in 2008.

"Being 15 years old, walking around the Olympic village and swimming in the pool where Michael Phelps broke the records and got eight gold medals it was amazing." says Wise.

Even among Olympic gold, he says he really looks up to the athletes in the next lanes over during the 2012 Paralympics Swimming Trials.

"We all face physical challenges everyday, we refuse to let that stop us." says Wise.

"These are some of the top world-class athletes in the world, they just have physical or visual disabilities, that wouldn't allow them to compete." says Loeffler.

90 athletes with a range of disabilities will compete to make the U.S. Paralympic swim team.

"Paralympics are mostly people with disabilities like blind and physical, I represent a pretty normal person, when I told people I was a paralympian they didn't believe it, but a lot of my friends refer to me as an Olympian." says Wise.

"You might see someone competing without a leg, competing against someone without an arm, but on a point scale they are in the same classification so everyone's swimming against people of the same ability." says Loeffler.

An ability to overcome all obstacles, and inspire all athletes.

"So I refused to give up, I was competitor before I was diagnosed, when I heard I could swim I was accepted the challenge and just kept swimming." says Wise.

Joe's first race, the 400 freestyle is Thursday.

His goal is to beat his best time achieved in Beijing of 4 minutes, 15 seconds.

There are 14 male slots and 20 female slots to make the U.S. team.

They will officially find out who makes the team on Sunday.