Evolve stage 2 slim
She started swimming as part of her rehabilitation just eight weeks after surgery. She is the reigning Paralympic champion for the latter individual event.Ĭole is classified in the S9 category in swimming due to an amputation in her right leg, which occurred when she was two years old to treat a rare sarcoma. Six-time Paralympic gold medalist Cole will seek to add to her collection in the 100m freestyle, 400m freestyle, 100m backstroke and two relays. It was just whole new stuff for me."įollowing a Paralympic cycle like no other, 29-year-old Cole headlines Australia's 32-strong swimming team for the Tokyo Games. "It changed things up in my training and almost made me hungrier to find new ways to train and adapt to that, while also adapting in the coronavirus pandemic. "It was a really interesting challenge, I enjoyed this which is a very strange thing to say," she said. It's an odd statement at first thought but after 15 years of international swimming, the challenge only made Cole hungrier for more. The now four-time Paralympian found the recovery journey "fun" as it created variation to her training. The biggest setback was an inability to weightbear on that side. At the end of the day, for the Paralympics it's very much leave your baggage at the door and race the best you can."Ĭole was fortunate in that the break was in a movable bone, meaning she could still swim and continue her training for Tokyo. "It's been like that for some, but very detrimental for others. "I was very much looking forward to having an extra year to prepare for the Games," Cole said. The Tokyo Games were delayed due to the COVID-19 crisis. "I was thinking about all the athletes that had been injured before and managed to turn it around to race," Cole told ESPN.īut two weeks later hope came in a different form as the extraordinary happened. In that moment Cole thought of athletics star Jana Pitman, who'd miraculously returned from a knee injury in time for Athens 2004. The chance to make her fourth Paralympic Games and add to her 15 medal haul seemed slim. "I have four months to get ready for Tokyo."Ī feeling of dread then came over the Australian swimmer as she thought of the recovery process. Paralympian Cole on her fourth Games and the movement's evolutionĪs Paralympian Ellie Cole lay in hospital with a broken hip, it suddenly dawned on her.
#EVOLVE STAGE 2 SLIM UPGRADE#
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