Lawrence Sapp will be among 4,400 athletes from around the world competing at the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games. He will be racing in the 100-meter butterfly event. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

Lawrence Sapp is no stranger to competing on the world stage. As a member of Team USA Swimming, he has graced medal stands across the globe.

Sapp, a native of Waldorf, Maryland, won gold in the 100-meter backstroke at the World Para Swimming Championships in Mexico City in 2017 and earned a silver in the 100-meter butterfly at the 2019 championships in London. He went on to compete at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Paralympic Games, which were held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, placing fifth in the 100-meter butterfly.

Sapp, who is autistic and is a second-year student in the Succeed Program at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, will have another opportunity to go for gold at the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games, which run from Aug. 28 to Sept. 8. Sapp is swimming in the 100-meter butterfly and will be among 4,400 athletes from around the world competing in 22 sports across iconic venues in Paris, including the Eiffel Tower, the Chateau de Versailles and the Grand Palais.

He said he’s feeling confident ahead of the event and is trying to focus on his fundamentals.

“I’m looking forward to racing – just go out there and execute,” Sapp said. “We’ll see how it goes. I’ll just do the best that I can.”

Sapp has participated in year-round, competitive swimming since he was around 12 years old. In high school, he broke five school records while competing with the varsity team. His dedication to the sport and strong performance in the pool earned him a spot on the Team USA Swimming national team in 2017.

Last year, he brought his talents to UMSL, where he’s competed on the Tritons men’s swimming team and studied in the Succeed Program, the Office of Inclusive Postsecondary Education’s program for students with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

The life of a college swimmer has kept Sapp busy over the past year.

“I’ve been working hard,” he said. “It’s a lot of swimming to do.”

A seventh-place finish in the 100-meter butterfly with a time of 58.09 at the 2023 World Para Swimming Championships in Manchester, England, qualified Sapp for the Paris Games.

“I feel OK because it was not the time I wanted, but I was still happy that I qualified for Paris,” he said.

He added that he fell back on the last 25 meters of that race, but he’s been working on improving his times. He’ll have the opportunity to do some last-minute fine-tuning when Team USA takes part in a training trip in Germany from Aug. 16 to 24 before heading to France.

Sapp is excited to see Paris and happy to represent his country, no matter what happens in the pool.

“I feel good,” he said. “I just want to do the best I can.”