Half Time Is Over! | Australia's para athletes are primed for Paris

In the final countdown to the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, Australia’s top para athletes have fine-tuned their preparations for Paris in the South of France and in Switzerland.

With athletes travelling from across Australia, the Paralympic staging camps provide the perfect environment for athletes to acclimatise to European conditions, refine their techniques with the support of coaching and sport science staff and mentally prepare for the biggest competition of their lives.

While many athletes completed their preparation at home or abroad before travelling directly into the Village, the majority of the team travelled to CREPS de Montpellier as per their Olympic counterparts or trained at altitude in St Moritz, to put the finishing touches on their preparation.

Australia won 19 medals in Tokyo in 2021 and 14 medals at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships, held in the Paralympic host city.

Athletics Australia Paralympic Technical Lead and Assistant Team Manager Steve Caddy said there is much to be excited for ahead of the start of the athletics competition on August 30.

“You look at the last couple of Paralympics and we had three gold medals in Rio and four in Tokyo,” Caddy said.

“Four golds again is very achievable but it’s not the benchmark – we want more, and we think there’s more in there with a team we can feel win five or six gold medals on the day if everything goes right.

“We saw it with our Olympic track and field team that they performed on the day, when it mattered and they got the results. We have had very similar preparations through staging camps, so there’s no reason why our Paralympians can’t do what our Olympians did.”

The Australian team is comprised of 32 athletes, plus two sighted guides in Olympic steeplechaser Matt Clarke and experienced campaigner Tim Logan, and includes 11 debutants.

“While we’ve got 11 Paralympic debutants, we’ve only got one on the first Athletics Australia team in Telaya Blacksmith, because the other 10 have already been to one or two World Championships and they’ve already shown their level of performance.

“Mali Lovell is a good example of a silver and bronze (200m T36) at the 2023 and 2024 World Championships. Another being exposed to this level is Dayna Crees who was fourth at the 2023 worlds and Ella Hose who was fourth in shot put, while young middle-distance runner in Angus Hincksman took bronze in Paris last year.

“We have a strong cohort of young athletes coming through who get to mix with some great leaders in Angie Ballard at her seventh Paralympics, Madi de Rozario at her fifth and Vanessa Low at her fourth Games, along with other proven performers in Michael Roeger and Jaryd Clifford.”

Fans can tune in to the Paralympic Games beginning tomorrow night on the Nine Network and can keep across all athletics results at athletics.com.au

By Sascha Ryner, Athletics Australia and Margie McDonald, Paralympics Australia
Posted: 28/8/202