The US Olympic Training Center, along with the Stanford women’s swim team, made a lifelong dream come true last week, hosting Abbey Cornelius for a practice.
Cornelius, 15, was diagnosed with stage 2 Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in early 2017 and has always dreamed of swimming in college and meeting Katie Ledecky. With the help of Wishes & More (a Minnesota-based foundation that offers scholarships and helps fulfill wishes of children with terminal or life-threatening conditions), she made the trip to the OTC, dined in the athletes’ dining hall, toured the facility, and got to swim with Ledecky and company.
Check out the video and photos from the visit:
Soo amazing to be able to swim with @katieledecky yesterday!!!❤️? pic.twitter.com/3ucASUquTf
— abbey cornelius (@cornelius_2002) January 4, 2018
This is so fantastic. Such class. Such love. My father passed from this terrible disease. You Stanford women are awesome!
Awesome job Stanford. Keep swimming Abbey! Exercise has been shown to help patients with chemo and radiation related treatment side effects, maintain strength and stamina, and potentially reduce the risk of recurrence. Club Wolverine ran a swim program for several years for kids at Mott Children’s Hospital who were being treated for cancer and chronic pain. It works!!
Best of luck Abbey!
I would love to see the Stanford ladies practice. I would even like to get destroyed by Ledecky for the first 10% of her practice that I could even keep on her intervals.