Three-time Paralympian, world champion, and Lifeline ambassador, Sarah Walsh, is no stranger to the triumphs and challenges that international competition can bring.
The 26-year-old was born with fibular hemimelia, and at 18 months old, her parents made the decision to amputate her right foot.
Sarah’s athletic journey began as a Year Three student at St John Bosco Catholic Primary School, Engadine, where she was entered into a para-athlete athletics competition by a teacher.
“My school was the start of my athletics career,” Sarah said.
“This teacher had entered me in the 100, 200, long jump, and shot put. I didn’t have a choice. And of course, I said yes, because it was another day off school. Little did I know…I was going to come home with four gold medals.”
Leading into her high school years at St John Bosco College, Sarah made her international competitive introduction in 2015 at the World Para-Athletics Championships in Doha, competing in the T44 class for long jump, and placing sixth.
Her Paralympic debut came at the 2016 Rio games, where she set an Oceanian record of 4.82m, finishing sixth. Just one year later, she placed fourth at the 2017 World Para-athletics Championships.
However, her success has not come without hardship. Sarah cites the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying lockdown as one of the biggest challenges of her career.
“No international competitions and everything that was going on in the world, it was hard to keep training, knowing that I couldn’t see my family and didn’t know if there was competition actually going to happen week to week,” she said.
However, she took advantage of an unfavourable situation and turned it around, using it as an opportunity to perfect and advance her abilities.
“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 distance,” she said.
At the Tokyo Paralympic Games in 2021, she placed seventh with a leap of 5.11m.
Earlier this year, she competed in Japan in her fifth world championships, where in the T64 long jump she placed fourth with a leap of 5.14m. In her most recent competition, the 2024 Paris Paralympics, she placed eighth in the T64 Long Jump.
Sarah hopes to compete in the Los Angeles Paralympic Games in 2028.