'Fate as well as faith' play part for Paralympian

JASON SMYTH’s fiancée Elise Jordan has been a constant presence beside him at the Paralympic Games when time has allowed him away from his training.

A 25-year-old American girl with blonde hair and a killer smile, she has been revelling in the attention that Smyth has received since winning the Paralympic T13 Olympic 100 metres title on Saturday night. The couple were not an item when he won double gold in Beijing. They posed for photographs and kissed when Smyth was presented with a memento by the chief executive of Paralympics Ireland Liam Harbison on Monday afternoon.

They are due to be married on December 29th in the world-famous Salt Lake Temple in Utah, the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints (LDS), better known as the Mormons.

The couple met when Brother Smyth, as he is known among the faithful, was visiting an uncle in Utah where Mormons are in a majority. His uncle introduced him to Jordan who attended the same church in Utah and the couple have been dating for two years. Jordan said the couple’s faith was a “huge part of who we are and what we believe. Joining in that faith gives us guidance and gives him a lot of help with his athletics”.

Smyth, from Eglinton, Co Derry, has cited his religion as something that has helped him and that fate as well as faith has played its part in his career.

Smyth does not wear his faith on his sleeve in the same way as Katie Taylor and is much less vocal about it in public, but it is central to his identity and his worldview. He has cited it as a huge part of his identity which has sustained him and helped him deal with the homesickness which comes with having to train in Florida. Because of his visual impairment he has been unable to complete the “mission”, the two years practising Mormons are expected to devote to missionary duties, but he sees his success as an athlete as his mission.

In an interview with a Mormon website last week, he declared “my faith is probably the biggest thing that motivates me. I know I have been given a talent, a talent in which I have to increase to the maximum but one in which I can do much good throughout the world in being an example and making people more aware of the gospel,” he told the Church Times.

Smyth had the crushing disappointment of missing out on a place in the Olympics by 0.04 seconds, but he believes that it is part of God’s providence. He also suffered disappointment when missing out on the Commonwealth Games in 2010 through injury, but instead went to Utah and met his now fiancée.

There are about 8,000 Mormons in Ireland – 3,000 in the Republic and 5,000 in the North – and they are intensely proud of Smyth. The LDS church is under intense scrutiny in the US because its most famous believer Mitt Romney could be the next president. Mormons are famously clean-living, eschewing not just alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs, but even tea and coffee.

LDS spokesman Eamonn Sheridan said he is “as sure as I can be” that Smyth keeps faithfully to their health law known as “The Word of Wisdom”.

“Like all young Olympians, Jason would be a wonderful example of the results of living a clean lifestyle,” he said. “Would that all young people would follow his example. Who knows what they could achieve. We’re rightly proud of the fact the he’s Irish and of his achievements.”

Smyth competes again in the 200m T13 on Friday.

Athlone Town Council has defended its decision to remove signs supporting the town’s Paralympic athletes because the posters were put up without permission. The signs were removed under the Litter Act.

Cllr Paul Hogan was in the Olympic Park in London when he heard his posters in support of world champion hand-cyclist Mark Rohan were taken away, a move the councillor described as disgraceful and heavy-handed.

“Those signs would have been removed by next week and they were genuinely in support of and proud of Mark Rohan and all his achievements to date,” he said.