Sarah Walsh

EVENTS:  Long Jump T64

AGE:  26

COACH:  Matt Beckenham

ATHLETICS CLUB: Sutherland

PARALYMPIC HISTORY: Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020

PERSONAL BESTS: 5.49m (11 March 2021)

BIOGRAPHY

Sarah Walsh started athletics when she was 9-years-old. “I was in Year 3 at school and the teachers told me I was going to the Zone Athletics Carnival”, Sarah said. “At this time I could barely run 100m never mind 200m and had no idea how to do Long Jump, it was just because I was a para-athlete that I automatically qualified. Once athletics became a little more serious for me I joined Helensburgh Little Athletics Club.” 

In her early teens she continued to compete in sprints and long jump, setting Australian records galore. She progressed quickly and just after her 17th birthday, in 2015 she made her International debut at the World Para-Athletics Championships in Doha. She was competing in the T44 class for leg amputee athletes. She ran in the 100m heats and placed sixth in the long jump final.

In 2016 she was also sixth in the long jump, making her Paralympic debut in Rio. She moved closer to the podium at the London 2017 World Para-Athletics championships placing fourth. Those three competitions had seen Walsh improve at each championship from 4.76m to 4.82m and 4.85m in London. She had required a leap of 5.00m in 2017 to have reach the podium.

At the Dubai 2019 World Para-Athletics Championships, the event, now reclassified as T64, saw a major shift in standard. Suddenly 5.00m would ‘only’ have placed seventh. Walsh, now 21, was up for the challenge in Dubai starting the competition with a distance of 5.03m and in the fifth round nailing an Oceania record of 5.20m. In a dramatic competition, Japan’s Maya Nakanishi moved from third to first in the last round, as Walsh placed third – her first global medal.

The world championships in 2019 were held late in the year, which was going to be a challenge for many athletes aiming to take time for a build up to the Tokyo Paralympics. Then in March 2020 came the news the Games would be delayed. This was an opportunity for Sarah Walsh.
“The postponement of the games gave us a huge opportunity to put in some solid strength training in the gym and get a lot stronger which is really important for long jump and with strength comes more speed which is also really important,” said Walsh. 

But coach Matt Beckenham and Walsh also had another plan – a technical change which can take years to refine.
“We also used the delay in the games to change my jumping technique which we wouldn’t have been able to do successfully given the short turn around time from World Championships 2019 to the original games date. We added more distance to my long jump run up and changed my jumping technique to a hitch style jump which definitely challenged my brain in the beginning but now has proven to be really beneficial and helped a lot with distances.”
The efforts of coach and athlete were evident in 2021 with a series of personal bests by Walsh highlighted by an Oceania and Australian record of 5.49m in March 2021. 

Selected for her second Paralympics, in Tokyo, things didn’t go to plan for Walsh, placing seventh with a leap of 5.11m.

In May 2023, she was selected for her fourth Australian world championships team, where she placed fifth with a jump of 4.94m. In early 2024 she lined up at her fifth world championships in Kobe Japan, where in the T64 long jump she was fourth with a leap of 5.14m. The distance was her longest at a global meet since the 2019 world championships. Later in the year she was named on her third Paralympic Games team for Paris 2024.

About her disability: “I was born with a condition called Fibular Hemimelia so when I was born I did not have my Fibula and I only had a small foot. My parents made the decision to have my foot amputated when I was 18 months old. I got my first blade when I was 10-years-old from the sponsorship of Otto Bock and the Appliance and Limb Centre. When I first ran on the blade it was very different from what I had been previously used to. Before I got my blade I ran on my day leg, this leg did not absorb any shock from the track. Unlike my day leg, the blade does absorb the shock from the track. After a couple of times of running on the blade it became more natural and also became easier to run on. The ongoing challenges to improve is keeping up with the technology of the Carbon Fibre Blades and improving my technique.”

Study: Bachelor of Sport and Exercise Science…Other sports: swimming and gymnastics before making a real push into athletics. She’s also dabbled in wheelchair basketball. “I did dancing when I was younger but I quit because I couldn’t point my right toes.”…Australian Records: holds many T64 100m open to U15, 200m open to U15, 400m open to U16, Long Jump open to U18. 

@ 22 Aug 2024 david.tarbotton@athletics.org.au