Growing up, Aaron Small felt ashamed of his hearing aids.
“I used to intentionally leave my hearing aids at home because I didn’t want anyone at school to see me,” the 23-year-old Team USA sprint kayaker and Seattle native tells TODAY.com. “Now, they’re very bright blue and green, and it’s gone from hiding it to, ‘Look at me, they’re cool.’”
Small's hearing aids will be on display as he competes in the team sprint kayaking events during the 2024 Paris Olympics, making him the first American with hearing loss to do so.
Embarrassed and bullied
When Small was 4, he was diagnosed with bilateral hearing loss, or hearing loss in both ears.
At first, his mom wondered if being too close to fireworks or another loud sound had caused it, but testing revealed that wasn’t the case. The family "never really found out" why he experienced hearing loss, he says.
As a kid, Small felt embarrassed by his hearing aids and was even bullied. But after he started sprint kayaking at age 11, he was immediately smitten with the sport. He made loads of friends, and his mom also appreciated that it helped him in “dispensing (his) energy.”
“I really loved it,” he says. “I got to go outside and play in the water, go super fast in boats.”
Soon, “It escalated to the more competitive aspect,” he recalls. “The Olympics have always been a dream of mine since I started.”
Still, Small understood it took a lot of training, practice and time to make it to such an elite level of competition. Two years ago, he thought he was close to achieving his lofty goals.
“I realized, OK, this could actually be a possibility. (I thought), let’s kick it into the next year and start going for it,” he says. “At first, there was definitely more fun racing with my friends, just trying to see how fast I could go.”
Hearing aids and kayaking
Small used to forgo hearing aids when he was kayaking so the water couldn't damage them. But this meant he often had to ask people to repeat themselves.
While he still has "a decent amount" of his hearing, he explains that without hearing aids, “it’s definitely way more difficult and it takes a lot more energy to listen.”
Now, he has Phonak Audéo Lumity Life hearing aids, which are waterproof and rechargeable. They help him better understand others when he's training and competing.
“It is really important to me that I can hear in my second-home environment out on the water,” he says. “Having the waterproof feature on my hearing aids has been really awesome because I can communicate with coaches (and) my teammates on the water.”
Going for gold
For the Paris Olympics, Small qualified as part of a team sprint kayak event with Jonas Ecker. While the two raced together for about six years, they did not enter international competition until 2022. Small enjoys the dynamics of the team.
“I have a single partner that has to hold me accountable, and I have to hold him accountable,” he says. “We can work together to get this done. I really like that team boat aspect of it.”
Competing in the Paris Olympics feels surreal in the best way. “It’s hard to put it into words,” Small says. “I’m very excited.”
While he’s looking forward to competing, he also hopes that by being in the Olympics he can be the role model that he wished he had as a child.
“I’m in a unique position as a high-level athlete and also someone who’s grown up with hearing loss and being in the position to advocate for other people that can’t quite advocate for themselves yet,” he says.
“When I was a little kid, I would have appreciated someone at such a high level in sports or even just older than me that I could look up to and be like, ‘Oh, they have hearing loss. They wear hearing aids. That’s totally awesome.’”
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