Updated at 14.19
NICOLE TURNER WAS seven years old when she was diagnosed with hypochondroplasia, one of over 200 different types of dwarfism.
It is caused by a mutation in the FGFR3 gene and affects the conversion of cartilage in to bone growth.
According to littlepeopleuk.org, a child with dwarfism is born once per 25,000 births, while very few doctors know much about the various dwarfism conditions.
It can be inherited from one or both parents, though 80% of people with dwarfism have average height parents and siblings, and it is sometimes attributed to a genetic change at conception.
“When I was born, I was a really sick baby,” Turner tells The42. “My mum’s a nurse, so obviously, she’d know her stuff.
“My mam always told the nurses: ‘There’s something wrong with her, this isn’t a normal child’ and everything. They were like: ‘No, she’s fine.’
“I went for several blood tests and scans, and eventually, when I was seven, they found out I had dwarfism. When I got this information, my mam and dad thought I was the only little person in Ireland. My mum was so scared. She didn’t know what to do with me.
Turner continues: “Little People of Ireland have a convention once a year where all the little people in Ireland get together. There’s a party and everything. And people are in the same boat as you. You go through the suffering of being stared at, looked at, pointed at, but at the end of the day, you’re you. So you can’t change anything. And I don’t want to change anything.”
The first person that Turner met who also had dwarfism was Sinéad Burke, a popular Irish writer and activist, who last year became a contributing editor at fashion magazine Vogue UK.
“Her mam and dad own the Little People of Ireland, so they organise it every year,” Turner explains.
“When I found out I had dwarfism, Sinéad and all the little people came to visit me in my house. She just reassured me that it is going to be okay and it’ll all work out in the end.
“You think at the time the world’s going to end, but it’s not. You do get great support. So if you want to do something, do it. Don’t let anyone tell you ‘you can’t,’ just because you’re a bit smaller than them.
“What Sinéad’s trying to do at the moment, she’s trying to make it a norm to see a small person walking down the street.”
Click Here: lions rugby online store
British star Ellie Simmonds inspired Nicole Turner to become a swimmer.
Source: Steve Parsons
Like Burke, Turner also tries to be a role model for little people everywhere. She herself was inspired to become an athlete by Ellie Simmonds, the British Paralympian who won two gold medals in the Beijing Games in 2008 — the same year Turner was diagnosed with dwarfism.
A year later, she met Simmonds at the World Championships and dreamed of one day emulating her.
“When I saw her and her gold medal, I was so inspired. I was like: ‘I want one of these when I’m older.’
“Obviously, every little kid’s going to say that and I didn’t realise the commitment required. When I was younger, if I was asked to swim seven times a week, I’d be like, ‘no chance, I’m not doing that’. But swimming was always something I did.
“It was mad. I’ve been looking up to Ellie since 2008. Then, in 2015, I started competing against her, so I was just thinking: ‘God, I looked up to you, and now you’re on the block beside me.’”
Turner’s rise has been pretty remarkable. By the age of 12, she was on the Irish senior team. From there, she won two silvers and a bronze medal at the European Championships and at 14, she competed in the Rio Paralympics, qualifying via the 2015 World Championships.
“Everyone around me was getting all nervous and stressed about their races. But I was just treating it like anything else. I just went out and had a bit of fun. So that was very serious, but I didn’t take it very seriously.
“I missed out on a medal by half a second. If that was now, I would have bawled my eyes out, whereas then I was only 14, it was my first Paralympic Games, so I was fifth in the world at the Paralympics — not many people can do that.”
Still only 17, Turner has taken a year off school with the 2020 Paralympics on the horizon.
The regular journeys up to the National Aquatic Centre from Portarlington are consequently less pressurised given the extra free time she has.
“I’ve been swimming up in the NAC seven times a week now since the middle of second year. When I did that, we’d train at 5 to 7 every evening. Originally, my school didn’t finish until 10 to 4. So it’d mean me leaving school at 10 to 4 and I wouldn’t get up here on time.
“I sat down with my school and said would it be a problem, and they let me finish early. They let me off a class every day. I finished school 40 minutes early, so I could come up to train. And then last year, I was in Transition Year, so that was a nice break.
“This year, I should be going into fifth year. It just wouldn’t have been possible to get off early and come to swimming and do three hours, so I just decided it was best to take off the year, focus on my swimming and then go back to school after Tokyo.
“That was just out of my control, and I had to deal with it. It was hard, but I got through it.
“Not having to study, I get about 12 hours sleep a night. Swimming’s my number one now.