Seventeen-year-old Jiya Madan Rai has made history as the first girl with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to swim across the Catalina Channel on September 26 in Los Angeles, but her journey to this stage was anything but easy. Remarkably, Jiya achieved this feat without any professional coaching — her first coach has been her father, Madan Rai, who introduced her to swimming at the Navy Nagar pool.

Madan, MC-At-Arms II (Junior Commissioned Officer) of the Indian Navy, said, “Jiya was diagnosed with ASD at the age of two, a condition that has no treatment in the world. From a very young age, she was extremely active and loved water — spending hours in the shower. When we took her to the swimming pool in our colony at Colaba, she was overjoyed. I started teaching her the basics of swimming as I was a swimmer myself.”