#30YearsRolling – Post 20/30 – Reflections on the 30th Anniversary of my Injury
GETTING BACK ON TRACK
It was quite ambitious to have one throw of a discus and then set my sights on the Paralympics, especially since I hadn’t seen the inside of a gym since a short rehab stint more than ten years earlier, and I hadn’t seen a physio in around five years either.
My first port of call was to see a physio to get advice on an exercise program since I was starting from scratch and had a lot of limitations physically.
I went in to see the physio, who had never seen me before, and told him of my grand plans and he offered to sponsor me with access to their gym and physio treatments!
I was blown away by the belief in my vision and was encouraged to keep sharing my goal with people I crossed paths with.
It is often the people you least expect who will back you.
It was a slow process starting with basic exercises, but I quickly saw improvements in my strength and stamina.
While I was working on improving my fitness, I joined an athletics club and started working with a coach to prepare to compete in club meets on weekends.
Before I could start competing though, I had to go through a “classification” process. In Paralympic sports this process helps to assess the ability of athletes to have them competing against athletes of similar ability.
In the lead up to the classification day the coaches I had been working with were confident that I would be in the F51 classification, which was for quadriplegics without triceps.
That year was a year the world championships were being held, in France, and the coaches felt that with intensive coaching and training I could qualify to compete there.
With that on my mind I went into the classification with big visions for the year.
The classification itself was as impersonal as it sounds.
I had a medical report from my specialist prior confirming the spinal cord injury I have and the way it impacted my functional capacity.
On the day there were three assessors – two were physios and one was a technical specialist.
I was put through a physical examination which included being talked about like I wasn’t in the room and them poking, prodding and feeling how different muscles worked or didn’t work.
Following that was them watching me throwing to see how what they saw related to the physical assessment.
After that I was asked to wait outside while they discussed their observations in relation to the criteria for each classification.
The longer I waited, the more concerned I became that it might not be a favourable outcome.
Eventually they called me back in and told me that they had concluded that I was in the F52 classification.
I felt the tears well up in my eyes.
It might not sound significant but the difference in the qualification throwing distances I would need to achieve for world championships were vastly different.
As an F51 I could have qualified with a distance of 5.50m, as an F52 it was 12-13m. Up to that point the best I had been throwing was around the 4m mark and having to compete in the F52 classification would see me come up against athletes with triceps (a big advantage for throwing), more functional hands and arms, throwing with their dominant arm (I was throwing left handed) and potentially more core function too.
In that moment world championships were gone.
I asked why and they said because I had some abdominal function, I would have had an advantage over others in F51.
After some back and forth I realised the decision wasn’t going to be shifted and I left feeling deflated.
As I was slowly pushing my way back to the car I stopped for a moment and said to my then partner, “you know what? This is the best thing that could have happened to me right now. If it had have happened too easily, I wouldn’t have worked as hard as I could have!”
Disappointment can be an incredible motivator.
I stopped again before getting into the car and said to him, “I’m going to go to Rio and it’s not going to be for fucking Bocce!”
Training continued, my fitness improved, and I started competing in the Adelaide club meets working towards State Championships then the Queensland State Championships.
The South Australian State Championships were my first taste of high-level competition and I loved it. I came away with my first medal, a gold one. State Champion had a great feel to it and I wanted more.
The Queensland meet was significant because there was to be an elite training camp with the national coach and an opportunity for another classification, this time with an international panel.
The coaches were feeling confident that we’d come away with the F51. I knew I couldn’t be competitive internationally with the F52 classification. The chance to have another opinion gave me hope.
The experience of classification there was no better than my first one. In many ways it was worse. I felt even more invisible and when it came to the technical assessment, I saw the panel speaking with a person from my previous classification and he was shaking his head which made my heart sink.
I was still strapped into my throwing frame when the panel came to tell me and my coaches that they’d come to the decision that I needed to compete in F52.
I felt like I’d been kicked in the guts after how much work we had been putting in training. The coaches blew up and submitted an appeal to have another panel assess me.
The next day I had to go through the process all over again. I was exhausted, physically and mentally.
The third time around I was prepared for an unpleasant experience and found it was surprisingly not. The panel were more engaged and communicated with me in a more personal way which was a relief.
The outcome of the assessment was unfortunately the same.
What they did highlight to me though, was that due to a subtle language difference between the field 51 classification (“no trunk function”) and the track 51 classification (“usually no trunk function”), I would be eligible to compete in T51 if I decided to take up track events.
The thought of getting squashed into a racing chair did freak me out but I saw it as my only way to get to the Paralympics. Nothing great happens without getting a bit uncomfortable along the way!
The experience I had in the training camp that week gave me a taste of what it would take to be great and I loved it. Training for two hours in the gym each morning, then out in the field for two hours each afternoon and being in an environment of elite performance was something I wanted more of.
I competed in the discus the following night, coming away with another medal.
Shortly after returning home to Adelaide I discovered that I’d qualified for the national championships in Sydney a few weeks later. Even though I knew I wasn’t going to pursue discus beyond that season I didn’t want to miss the chance to compete at that level.
It was still early days in my business and cashflow was terrible, so I didn’t have the money to be able to travel to Sydney to compete. I didn’t let that get in the way and immediately setup a GoFundMe page to raise the money, offering rewards in return depending on the level at which people contributed.
I was blown away by the support of my network and in less than 24 hours I had raised more than the $2,000 I needed.
The experience of competing at Sydney Olympic Park, where I had come to watch the Paralympics thirteen years earlier, was almost surreal.
I never thought I would do any sport again let alone competing at that level.
It was an eye opener the level of regulation and scrutiny there is at that level, even down to having to cut the label off my water bottle because it had a brand name on it!
It was the final event I was going to compete in and the only goal I had was to do finish with a PB. And that I did.
I threw exactly 5.50m. The minimum qualifying distance for world championships for the F51 classification. It got me a silver medal but there was a bittersweet feeling of having fallen through the cracks in classifications. Too able for F51 and unable to be competitive in F52. It was though a perfect hand off to becoming a T51 track athlete instead.
While I was there, I met with some of the track athletes and coaches and got great advice for my transition the following season.
I went on to compete in the 100m for the following two seasons, making it to nationals again in 2014. It was there I had an absolute disaster of a race which has become one of the best resilience stories I now have.
My goal was to qualify to compete in the Rio Paralympics and the World Championships the year before that in Doha.
The chair I had was a total shopping trolley, I didn’t have access to the coaching I needed and the track in Adelaide was a long way from home and very slow, so I had a lot working against me achieving those goals.
What I did have though were an amazing group of sponsors and supporters who helped with physio, personal training, gym, supplements, and travel when I needed it.
I didn’t appreciate at the time was how much competing in athletics at this level would have meant to my 12-year-old athlete self who felt her life was over because she couldn’t be a competitive runner any more.
The song that represents this time for me is “Back In The Saddle” by Aerosmith.
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Stacey Copas, Author of “How To Be Resilient”, helps shift the way people perceive and respond to uncertainty, change and adversity, helping them to see opportunities where they once saw only obstacles.
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