The Hardest Lesson: Why a Break Saved a Paralympic Career (w/ Evan Wilkerson)

Show Notes:
He won a Bronze Medal after battling E. coli and quarantine just hours before his race! Hear Paralympic swimming star Evan Wilkerson reveal the untold story of his dramatic entry onto the world stage.

‘They can drown me, but I’m not being fourth.’ That was Evan Wilkerson’s mantra in the final meters of his World Championship race. The blind Paralympic swimmer had fought through E. coli at Paris, burned out at nationals, and nearly quit. Then he learned the lesson every parent needs to teach their kids about resilience.

In this episode, Evan Wilkerson shares his journey from Paris Paralympics disappointment to World Championship bronze—and the critical lesson about burnout that changed everything.

What You’ll Learn:

✅ How Evan competed at the Paralympics with severe E. coli
✅ The burnout trap of “outworking every problem”
✅ Why taking breaks makes you stronger, not weaker
✅ How Ouachita Baptist University’s creative tapper solution works
✅ The mental game of racing when you can’t see your competitors

Key Moments:

 • The tactile details of a World Championship bronze medal with braille
 • “Your first 50 looked great. The second 50, you looked like you were drowning.”
 • The work-study student tapper program that’s changing college para-swimming
 • Race day in Singapore: “They can drown me, but I’m not being fourth”

This is Part 1 of 3 in Evan’s story. Next week: His guide dog training experience and critical safety information every dog owner needs to know about working service dogs.

🔗 Watch Evan’s Pre-Paris Interview (2024): https://youtu.be/UOmzsTlvg7c

🥇 Learn more about Paralympic sport classifications: https://youtu.be/cPmYgv_Hskg

🦯 Watch Evan’s first interview (2022) on Water Prairie: https://youtu.be/y3SE3m7Lrhg

Work with Tonya as an IEP Coach: If you’re looking for personalized support, a trusted partner, and expert guidance through the IEP process, I would be honored to be part of your team. Find more information about my IEP coaching services here: https://waterprairie.com/iepcoach

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Music Used:

“LazyDay” by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Artist: http://audionautix.com/

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Episode #141: The Hardest Lesson: Why a Break Saved a Paralympic Career (w/ Evan Wilkerson)

He won a Bronze Medal after battling E. coli and quarantine just hours before his race! Hear Paralympic swimming star Evan Wilkerson reveal the untold story of his dramatic entry onto the world stage.

(Recorded October 8, 2025)

Full Transcript of Episode 141:

World Championship Bronze Medal With Braille

Evan: Has the braille and all the designs you can see. I believe this side has some sort of flower wave-type design. It’s very intricate, and so you can feel the detailing and all that type of thing that went into it.

INTRO: That’s a world championship bronze medal, and the journey to earn it involved food poisoning, quarantine, burnout, and a college freshman learning when pushing hard isn’t always the answer. I’m Tonya Wollum with the Water Prairie Chronicles, and today Evan Wilkerson is sharing lessons about resilience that every parent needs to hear.

Tonya: Evan, I have to start with this. Can you show us that bronze medal from Singapore?

Evan: And Of course

Tonya: How does it feel holding it inside your hand?

Evan: It’s very heavy for a medal. Um, this is definitely the heaviest medal I’ve ever gotten. Making these, it’s very detailed. Uh, the braille in them is very good, and the texture of all of the, the different designs and things was incredibly well done.

Tonya: Oh, wow. So it’s, now I saw a picture that you had posted on social media, that it had braille on it. What other tactile images are on there?

Evan: So it has the braille, and then, all the designs you can see, are on there. So, you know, I believe this side has, it’s some sort of flower wave type design.

Tonya: Yeah, that’s how it looks.

Evan: Um, it, it’s very, very intricate and so you can feel, it’s hard to tell what it is at times, but you can feel the, the detailing and all that type of thing that went into it.

Tonya: The last time we talked, you were heading to Paris. had really high hopes. I’ve shared a lot on the platform here, but not everyone who’s listening was part of that journey with So take me back to that moment. You were actually heading at the time that we talked, I think like the next day or a couple days later, you were heading to the training center and you kind of walked us through that.

And listeners, I’m gonna link that so you can go back and listen to that if you’d like to kind of get the full picture of where we’re going with this. But before the first competition, you ran into a roadblock.

The Paris Paralympics E. Coli Disaster

Tell us just briefly what happened after you got to Paris.

Evan: So, before we were in Paris, we were in Germany. I love exploring international food. I I think a lot of it tastes better than what we have here. And so I go all out in a lot of ways. I got a little too adventurous, and when I got to Paris, I started to realize that may have been a mistake. We flew in on a Saturday, started feeling off on a Sunday.

It wasn’t great. I was like, okay, this is fine. I’m gonna push through. Wednesday comes around, it’s not better. I was like, I need to get this tested. I go down to sports med, they test it, they tell me, yeah, you have E. coli. It’s probably one of the worst cases we’ve ever seen.

It’s really bad. I’m not gonna go into details, but needless to say, very bad. They quarantined me for about two days before the competition. I actually got out of quarantine 12 hours before my first swim, so that was very much not ideal.

Racing Sick: Four Events in One Week

I hadn’t touched water for two days.

Which if there’s any swimmers out there, you guys know you want to keep moving before your big races; otherwise it’s gonna go pretty poorly. With E. coli, I also lost a lot of weight. I’m not a guy who has that much weight to lose as it is. Uh, so I went in feeling pretty weak.

But, uh, the competition itself, uh, all things considered, went very well.

We had a ninth-place finish in the a hundred-meter backstroke, which, uh, after having E. coli was just a miracle in and of itself.

I talked to one of my friends when I got back home, and she said, yeah, your first 50 looked great. The second 50, it looked like you were starting to drown a little bit.

And I was like, yeah, that’s basically what happened. so that was, that was not ideal, but all things considered, what I had going on pretty good.

Uh, so, Wednesday we had the, uh, the a hundred free. Dove in, my goggles fell off. Kind of painful. I think we had like an 11th or 12th place finish even with that happening with E. coli.

Uh, so that’s, that’s still very well, very well done on, uh, on my part and I think on the part of the coaching staff who helped me kind of get myself back into shape after losing all that weight. And then that night, of course,

we had the four by 100 meter freestyle relay and, uh, we placed fifth in that the whole relay team did.

We broke the American record, uh, and then Saturday was butterfly. Um, and butterfly isn’t really my major thing, so I was like, I’m gonna walk out here, I’m gonna soak it all in. I’m gonna enjoy the race and then I’m gonna get out knowing that, you know, I gave this competition all I had, uh, and this was what I built for built, uh, basically built to get to for eight years and I somehow made it happen.

And if I can make this happen, you know, I don’t think there’s a lot that I can’t do with just relentless effort and determination.

Tonya: Yeah, well, even to, for the relay team to have been that close. I had not remembered how the relay finished. So you did well considering everything that was there. You did well on all fronts. I think.

Evan: Oh yeah.

Tonya: How did you reset mentally after Paris? Because you had spent eight years getting ready for this, and then to have been hit by something out of your control like that had to be hard emotionally and just recovering.

It’s always emotional whenever you’re trying to recover from something to begin with.

The Burnout Mistake After Paris

Evan: In hindsight I definitely made a mistake after Paris. Typically when I have a problem like that, my solution is just to outwork the problem. You know, if you can’t beat it, figure out how to outwork it.

Tonya: Right.

Evan: And so I took about a week and a half off after Paris, and after that week and a half, I jumped right back into full swing training.

I did that for, I’m trying to think here about eight, 10 months, after Paris. I had some good time drops, but I could really tell, okay, this was, this was a mistake. I should have taken more of a break. I’m getting burnt out. This is getting really hard. But again, my solution: outwork the problem.

Um, and that’s what I kept doing all the way up until, uh, national Championships of, uh, that June when, you know, I really just completely crashed and burned. Like when I say I got to the meet and I was ready to be done with the meet, that’s exactly what I mean. I showed up to the meet and I was like, oh my gosh, I can’t wait for this meet to be over.

And that is not me. Uh, when I get to a meet, I am, I am ready to go. I, I want to get in, swim fast. Win heats, um, being ready to be done with the meet is not me at all. And that’s kind of when I realized, okay, we have an issue that is gonna take some time for me to, to figure out and to figure out, you know, what my future of swim is.

And, uh, thankfully after that meet, I was going to go up to New Jersey anyway, to train with my guide dog, uh, which I think we’ll talk more about that later. But that was a much, much needed about month break in, uh, my swim life. Uh, I think if I kept pushing through there, uh, we would not have had the results we had at world championships just because the pure, uh, mental strain and burnout that was occurring during that time.

Tonya: You kind of hit a wall at that point, it sounds like, but yet you still qualified for the world competition.

Evan: I did. Yes.

Tonya: Interesting. So pushing through. Maybe psychologically wasn’t the right stage to go through, but, but the training at least um, had you back up. So you wonder what would your times have been, had you paced that differently coming in? And you’re never gonna know that.

Evan: Yeah, no. It, it’s one of the things you can’t bother yourself thinking about.

Tonya: And there’s not a need to. Part of it is, you know, these are, these are stages of growing up too and

Evan: Absolutely.

Tonya: As hard as it is. We all have to go through those phases of learning. And it sound sounds like you, you’ve learned a lot through this. That’s only gonna serve you well moving forward. So I was gonna ask you what your lowest point was, but it sounds like you may have already shared where you hit that one.

Evan: Oh, yes. Um, definitely that June.

Tonya: So, you’re now in college. And let’s see if I can say it right, because listeners, if you see the name of this, you’ll know why I’m saying this. I wanna say Wasta. Am I right? Am I close?

Evan: Ouachita (Wash-i-tah.)

Tonya: Ouachita (Wash-i-tah.) All right. I’m, I’m gonna get it eventually.

Starting College Swimming at Ouachita Baptist

You are at Ouachita,and you’re training as a college freshman.

So listeners, last time we talked, he was finishing up his senior year. He’s now, now in college. And, um, you started as a, as a new freshman coming in on the swim team there. So did you start training right away?

Evan: I did. Um, actually I never stopped, so I rolled straight from my club team in August, uh, right into training here. With the NCAA, we can’t officially start training, until the second week of school. But, we can go in and open swim as long as we’re not being coached. And so that’s what I did.

Um, I built my own workouts, uh, was my own pace clock. Uh, practicing like that is not fun. But, uh, you know, there’s a lot of not fun things we do for sports that, uh, you just have to put up with sometimes.

Rolled right into training with, the coaches here. And they were both of them, Coach Dawson and Coach Logan.

They were both amazing at getting me ready for Worlds, making sure I had what I needed, uh, getting a good taper in, making sure I had a plan to adjust my sleep schedule. Uh, all of the 1,001 things you need to compete at a high level, uh, basically on the other side of the world, uh, because that’s a, a huge time zone jump.

It’s a big climate jump. Uh, and you still wanna be able to, uh, to get in and go fast and feel good while you’re doing it.

Tonya: Have either of your coaches that you just mentioned, or anyone on the team, have they ever worked with a blind swimmer before?

Evan: No. Um, I am the, in some cases, I’m the first blind person they’ve ever met. Um, Coach Dawson, uh, was on a swim team with Tharon Drake, who is a, a blind swimmer. Um, Paralympian, all that type of good stuff. Uh, Tharon’s just an amazing guy and, uh, I think swimming with him really helped out, uh, Coach Dawson a bit to kind of know what to expect and to kind of have that, uh, that second voice, uh, kind of showing him how to, to coach me, how to explain certain things to me, uh, how tappers and sprinklers and all those wonderful things we use work.

Um, and so he has been a huge help through this whole process.

Yeah

Tonya: Well that’s, that’s what I was gonna ask if you’ve had to train them how to, how to help you. Because, because you’re using extra tools that are not, not your typical tools.

Training With Work Study Tappers

So, who is tapping now during practices and all?

Evan: So we, we actually have work study students who we got to be tappers. Uh, and that’s great. I don’t have to pull from teammates to be tappers. that, that really shows if you have good coaches who can think outside the box, you’re gonna get a fantastic solution. Uh, and it has been great so far.

Uh, ’cause these guys can show up and tap during practice. They can tap during meets. you know, this is, this is how part of how they’re getting scholarships for college. And so they’re, they’re with very, uh, very great guys who are doing it.

And uh I appreciate them doing it a lot.

Tonya: Are they, um, good students to learn how to do this or have you had any, any near misses to the wall with, with teaching them how?

Evan: They are both fantastic. Um, one of course is slightly better than the other. You’re gonna have that with any sort of tapping, but, um, we, we haven’t had any close calls being too close, so that has been a good thing. you know, plowing into the wall at full speed isn’t too fun. So while I’m still teaching them a little bit, I’m like, if you have a question, go further out.

Don’t go in because if you go in I could hit and that is no fun at all.

Tonya: No. No. And we, we can’t afford an, an injury, especially when you first got there and are trying to get ready for a quick turnaround to head across the, the world.

When you first got there, so training has started, you’re in that, that second week now where you’ve got your team training, you’re trying to get ready for the world championships. What did a typical day look like? You’re also getting used to being in college.

Evan: So our practice schedule varies from day to day. Uh, most of the time we have, uh, a morning practice and then Tuesday, Thursday we go to the weight room and lift. And then after whatever we have in the morning, we go to class. Uh, typically, you know, cramming lunch somewhere in there. Um, finish up with classes or homework depending on the day at around two, run over to the pool to be at practice at 2:15.

depending on the day, be there anywhere from, uh, until 3:30 or closer to 4:30. Um, some days we’ll do dryland workouts after practice. So that’s, you know, running, pull-ups, uh, AB workouts, just body weight stuff. Um, and then in the evening, you know, have dinner, do homework, sleep, repeat. Some people find it exhausting.

I, I think it’s great because I can tell I am, you know, I’m improving on this schedule. Even the, uh, the week I had was doing this whole schedule for Singapore. I was like, yeah, this is great ’cause this is exactly what I need. I’m getting in good yardage, a lot of sprints, getting in a lot of weights, a lot of workouts, really building up goodmuscle strength, muscle tone, all that type of stuff.

Race Day in Singapore

Tonya: Excellent. Well, we’re gonna talk more about school in another part of this conversation, but I wanna jump to Singapore now. Take me through race day now. Now, your first race was your strongest stroke, right?

Evan: Race day was fantastic. Singapore did such an amazing job with this. That was just probably one of the best swim meets I’ve ever been to.

The pool was nice. Where we were staying at the hotel was very nice. We had a very short bus trip to get there. It was only about 10 minutes compared to a lot of your international meets where it’s, uh, you know, it can be up to an hour to go from where you’re staying to the pool, and that’s a really long time to be sitting on a bus.

Tonya: Yeah.

Evan: But, you know, I get up, I have breakfast, I get to the pool, I do my warmup. Big fan of music before I swim. So I sit down, listen music for about hour and a half, go change my suit, warm up again. I go sit in the call room, walk out onto the pool deck. I do my morning swim, which I knew I was probably gonna make finals, so I wasn’t intent on, you know, really burning myself out in the morning.

Uh, kind of cruised that. Did about a 104.2. So that’s only about a 0.2 away from a best time . At night, I knew I was really gonna have to, uh, to turn up the heat a little bit if I wanted to make it on the podium.

“They Can Drown Me But I’m Not Being Fourth”

Uh, I was fourth, uh, in the morning and I was like, I am not being fourth. That was my thought in the last 15 meters of my race at finals, they can drown me, but I’m not being fourth.

And that night, you know, I come back to the pool, basically repeat the whole routine. There’s a lot more hype when you’re walking out. You know, there’s, uh, they’ve got music pumping from the speakers. A lot of the times there’ll be people with drums and other instruments up in the stands going crazy.

Uh, it, it’s very loud, it’s very intense. They’re announcing your names one by one as you walk through like an arch. And it, the whole experience is just designed to be like, oh yeah, it’s race day, let’s go. Which for me it worked. That race was really good. I got in, I hit my first 50 pace. Of course I didn’t know that in the water, but it felt strong.

Um, and in that second 50 I was like, okay, it’s everything I have left ’cause I’m not getting fourth. I really just pushed that last 50, hit the wall at a 1:03.05, ended up by taking bronze, behind, uh, uh, I believe the country that won gold was a Azerbaijan. And then there was a neutral para athlete who won silver. I believe he swims for Russia, but of course, they’re, you know, currently banned, so they have to swim under a neutral flag. But, uh, that was just a great race, a great experience up on the podium. You know, ev even with bronze, you’re still in the podium. You know, you’re still third in the world and you can’t ask for a lot more than that.

Tonya: No. So I haven’t asked you this. Are you on A Team now?

Evan: No, um, I’m actually still on B Team, but, uh. We, we should be making the jump to A Team here in the next year or so. Uh, with the training I’m doing now and the way that the times work, uh, they’re probably going to slow down slightly now that we’re off, um, the post Paralympic games year or will be in 2026, so the times will get just a little bit slower and that’ll help me out because it’s a little easier to, uh, to make that jump

Tonya: Right.

Evan: From B to A.

Tonya: Okay. And you’re still swimming S-12, right?

Evan: Correct. I got classed this year. They classed me as a 12. I am more than likely going to get classed again next year, uh, just because we’re, we’re questioning that classification a little bit, uh, because my eye doctor and their classification staff disagree by a very large margin on how much I can see.

Tonya: I was gonna ask you too is you were talking about you, you weren’t gonna be fourth but like, how do you even monitor where you are? Because like in the race, um, for back, you weren’t anywhere near the guy that was fourth. So you have no idea where he is.

Evan: That was basically just my mantra to make sure I kept going fast.

Tonya: Because you don’t want to be that guy who just got kicked off the podium. Right, right.

Evan: And you know, I was like, that’s not, that’s not gonna be me. Um, we’re, we’re making this third place. And, uh, at that point, you know, I don’t know where he is.

All I know is I need to go as fast as I possibly can, um, to avoid that happening.

Tonya: It was a great race to watch. It was really a lot of fun. We were yelling here, my father-in-law came over, and we were all watching it together.

Evan: Oh, very nice.

Winning Bronze and 50 Unread Messages

Tonya: So when you touched the wall and you realized that you’d won bronze, how did that feel? Can you describe for us?

Evan: Oh my gosh. It was the best feeling ever. Um, I don’t know if they showed it on livestream, but you can see me. I like jumped out of the water and came down and I like just pounded the water with my fist. I was just overjoyed. Um, and I’m usually a pretty calm, collected guy. Uh, I, I was yelling my head off down there.

I was like. Finally, this is what I’ve been working for and it’s all paying off.

Tonya: Did you realize right away, or did, did someone tell you? How did, how did you find out?

Evan: Um, my tapper told me about five seconds after I hit the wall.

Tonya: And who was the first person that you called or texted after, after you got out of the pool?

Evan: Oh my gosh. That, to be honest, I don’t even remember. I got out and I had something like 50 something unread messages from probably as many people.

Tonya: Oh, I’m sure.

Evan: So it, it was, it was wild.

The Lesson: When to Take a Break

Tonya: All right, so last question, and this is a thought provoking one for you. If you could go back and tell your sick self in Paris one thing, what would it be?

Evan: Take a break. Take a break after you’re done, it’s gonna make, it’s gonna set you up for more than likely a better year. You’re gonna be happier. Um, you know, your Spring Season’s gonna be a lot better and you’re gonna be able to have, you know, a more consistent training, uh, before Worlds. Um, and just while you’re here, relax and enjoy the experience.

Uh, you know, you’ve pushed really hard to get here. This happened. It’s unavoidable. Just relax and have fun because, you know, if we push hard, we’re gonna, we’re still not gonna do super fantastic. So use this to learn.

OUTRO: That bronze medal represents eight years of work, but Evan’s biggest lesson was learning when to rest. Remember that August break he mentioned for guide dog training? That month saved him from total burnout and set him up for Singapore success.

Next week we’ll be talking about that guide dog experience, and Evan shares critical information every dog owner needs to know about working service dogs. What your dog does around a working guide dog can have serious, even dangerous consequences.

This is part one of three. So subscribe and hit the bell so you catch part two next week. Comment below if you’ve ever dealt with an out-of-control dog in public, and I’ll see you next week.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):

Q1: What was Evan Wilkerson’s major challenge before his 2025 competition?
A1: Before his major competition in Paris in 2024, Evan was severely ill with E. coli. He was quarantined and lost significant weight, competing just hours after being released.

Q2: Why did Evan initially struggle with burnout after the Paris competition?
A2: Evan admits his mistake was trying to “outwork the problem” by jumping back into full-time training too quickly. This led to a mental and physical crash that impacted his performance.

Q3: What helped Evan recover from his burnout before the Singapore World Championships?
A3: A required month-long break to train with his new guide dog provided the necessary physical and mental reset. This break proved critical to his ultimate success in Singapore.

Q4: What classification does Evan compete in for Paralympic Swimming?
A4: Evan competes in the S12 classification for visually impaired swimmers, due to his Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis (LCA).

Q5: What college team does Evan swim for?
A5: Evan is a freshman swimming for the NCAA team at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas.

Q6: How did Evan’s college coaches support him with his tapping needs?
A6: Evan’s coaches found an innovative solution by using work-study students as tappers, preventing him from having to pull teammates away from their own training.