PARALYMPIAN gold medallist Vanessa Low OAM has overcome many challenges in her life after she was struck by a train at 15 in East Germany where she was born. The accident led to Vanessa having both legs amputated above the knee.
The resilience built in Vanessa to overcome the hardship and become a three-time gold medallist at the Paralympics makes her such an insightful guest at Beyond the Game, a free panel discussion about sport, inclusion and disaster recovery.
“One of the really challenging things was to really find out who that new person was and accepting that there is no such thing as overcoming adversity. A lot of us think there is such a thing as coming out the other side and returning back to normal lives after adversity hits. But it took me a long time to realise that is actually not possible. Not only do we change, in my case with the physical change, but we are no longer the same person and that’s a really good thing. I think it took me a long time to accept that and really enter the new life and the new opportunities rather than wasting so much time chasing back to have the same body and life that I had before and actually leaning into the new life,” said Vanessa.
“Col [Pearson – fellow panellist] and I, for example, are both individual athletes. We’re the ones competing by ourselves on the day, but there is a massive asset of our friends, our family, our coaches and all the supporters who get us there. And I don’t think a lot of people really understand that. I think with anything that we do we really need to lean more into the support network we have available to ourselves not only to celebrate our successes and to have someone there for us when it doesn’t go well. But someone to hold us accountable, someone that makes us want to reach for those goals. You know, by wanting to make mum proud, wanting to make the community proud, it heightens our motivation and the drive to get all the extra hours of training in.
“I think it’s really exciting to get the connection between athletes and community, and I’m excited to be part of the event because it not only gives us the opportunity to celebrate our successes, but it gives us the opportunity to say thank you. All of our careers to some extent have been affected by the communities around us.”
You can hear more about Vanessa’s journey at Beyond the Game on Sunday, December 15, from 11am to 2pm, at the Main Pavilion Function Room of Sports City on Numurkah Road. To book scan the QR Code, email recovery@shepparton.vic.gov.au or call 0478 257 397.
