PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — We are 22 days out from the start of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Athletes are still trying to make their respective teams in their sports to represent the U.S.
Recently I got to speak with Fiona Howard, 25, who is waiting patiently to hear if she made the paralympic team for equestrian.
When Howard is in town, she trains and lives in Palm Beach County. Since 2023 she's been competing on the international circuit to qualify for Paris. Currently, she's on the short list of competitors to be chosen for dressage.
Howard says she started riding horses at an early age. But by the time she was 11, her legs got tighter, her feet became deformed and she was officially diagnosed with Dystonia. It's a movement disorder that causes muscles to contract. She says things got so bad that she spent over 900 days in a hospital.
She says while lying in a hospital bed for nearly three years, she made the decision she was going to get back to competing in equestrian.
"I've always loved to be around horses and the bond you create with horses and when I got sick and started to lose my mobility horses kind of became the legs I don't have, and I fell in love with horses and then I fell in love with the sport," she told me.
Howard says qualifying for the paralympic team has taken her all over the globe from the United States, Qatar and all over Europe.