“And one has to understand that braveness is not the absence of fear but rather the strength to keep on going forward despite the fear.”
– Paulo Coelho
The Moment..
70,000 people… 19 years of training... 6 Throws… 1 stadium… and me sitting at one end of Sydney Olympic Stadium in my Australian uniform.. It all came down to that one moment….. if ever there was a time to panic.. this was it. But instead… a calm came over me and I could not hear the 70,000 people cheering me on… I had complete focus…. Those 19 years of training all came down to this moment.. and 6 throws is all I had to make a difference...
Greatest Achievement
Sydney 2000 Paralympics has been my greatest achievement to date. It didn't come easy, there were a lot of up's and downs along the way. I worked hard for years for that one moment in time.
And now I plan to do it all over again, 20 years later...
What it takes
Sydney 2000 Paralympics has been my greatest achievement to date. It didn't come easy, there were a lot of up's and downs along the way. I worked hard for years for that one moment in time.
And now I plan to do it all over again, 20 years later...
So Why Did I Come Back?
After all the healing and with my business going well I wanted to get my fitness back. So while working on building my business I managed to include going to the gym 6 days a week which consisted of, 5 sessions with a personal trainer, 2 boxing classes, 1 HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) class, 1 boot camp session and for fun 3 martial arts lessons a week, I could not get enough training in. My thinking was that I was already training at the level I was training when I went to the Paralympics so why not give it another go! I loved competing, it's what I know and it's something I was good at and I hope to be good at again. I'm starting at the bottom and working hard to get back to the top, the competition out there is stronger so I have a lot of work to do and I'm up for the challenge. This is exciting to me, I love training at the gym and out on the field. Challenging myself over and over to improve just so I can sit in the throwing circle for 6 throws. I may have taken a slight detour along the way when I left to create my business and having my health derail me for a while and now I am back with a fresh hunger and some new goals to beat...
Like I said before "Once an athlete, always an athlete" I created this site as my passion for sports was reignited on the 20th Anniversary of the Sydney 2000 Paralympics. I decided to come out of retirement and hit the competition circuit once again. I wanted to document my journey from the beginning of my sporting career up until now my current competitions.
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
― Thomas Edison
About Me
Being born with a disability was something out of my control, and I had to adapt to a world that challenged and tried to break me every day.
Always moving forward, I was determined and learned early that I might not have been able to change my environment around me but I could change the way I navigated through it.
Post Competition Interview
This interview was taken straight off the field after winning my silver medal for Shot Put.