Article by James Dowling, courtesy of The Australian.
Australia’s Paralympians have returned home, most of them still stepping out of the “sporting bubble” into a country celebrating their “blueprint for a world of inclusion and belonging”.
More than 100 athletes landed in Sydney on Wednesday morning bearing their “special baggage” of the 63 medals accrued at Paris 2024.
Fresh from the Paralympic closing ceremony, they were met warmly by family, friends and dignitaries, including Governor-General Sam Mostyn and Anthony Albanese.
Wheelchair marathon silver medallist and Opening Ceremony flag bearer Madison de Rozario was one of the first returnees to greet the nation. “There’s an intensity to the games that is nerve wracking … but once you can push past that, we’re doing what we love
out there,” she said. “The amount of prep that goes with it means you put four years of your life into just one day of racing. That does come with an element of intensity.”
De Rozario powered through further burdens at Paris, hearing of the death of her father in the hours after she carried the Australian flag in the Opening Ceremony. “This Paralympics was particularly big for myself, personally, but it was nice,” she said.
Gold medal cyclist Korey Boddington called Paris 2024 an excuse just to ride his bike, breaking a world record in the process.
“I just like riding my bike and being over there, riding my bike in another country in front of all these people screaming for you, that was incredible,” Boddington said. “I was so focused on just giving everything my best … I definitely lost touch of everything else.”
Fellow gold medal cyclist Emily Petricola made headlines earlier in the game for criticising the apparent neglect of Paralympic organisers towards fellow Paralympic cyclist Li Xiaohui.
She said Paralympians and those in the public with disabilities were often punished for speaking their mind, and she wanted to use the platform of Paris 2024 to stand up for them. “Not everybody has a voice and I think if you’ve got a platform, and you know what you’re saying is true and is right, you should say it,” Petricola said.
“It’s a highly competitive environment, it can be taken away from you for saying the wrong thing sometimes. But … I’m old, you stop caring about that sort of stuff at a certain age. We need loud voices to make change. The only way we’re going to get change is actually by speaking up about it.”
Paralympic Patron-in-Chief, Governor-General Sam Mostyn, celebrated Paralympic advocacy. “Just as the stadiums were even fuller for the Paralympics than the Olympics, I think Australians connected through the broadcast with all of your achievements, with a completely new level of engagement with sports, with Paralympics and inclusion,” she said. “The Australian Paralympic movement is a blueprint for a world in which inclusion and belonging are at the centre, with respect and an unequivocal embrace of diversity.”
Gold medal swimmer Thomas Gallagher reflected the sentiment of many of para-athletes in praising the community spirit at Paris, after the relative isolation at Tokyo 2020. “In direct comparison to Tokyo, the atmosphere in the stadium was just absolutely nuts, which I think lifted the athletes as a whole,” he said.
The Prime Minister honoured “the adversity that you (athletes) had overcome, the challenges you had faced, the determination and commitment that brought you to the pinnacle of world sport”.
