Rae Anderson

Rae Anderson learned to swim before she learned to walk. As she grew older, she sailed and surfed and played soccer, basketball and OZTAG, before a chance encounter with superstar coach Iryna Dvoskina in 2010 inspired her to give Para-athletics a go.

Dvoskina would have liked to turn Anderson into a champion sprinter, but Anderson had other ideas. She made her international debut in the women’s long jump T37/38 at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, before realising her potential as a thrower.

In 2015, Anderson represented Australia at the IPC Athletics World Championships in Doha, Qatar, where she placed sixth in the women’s javelin F37 and seventh in the women’s discus F37. Proving she is an elite athlete in the truest sense, she competed in the javelin on the same day as sitting her final exam for the Higher School Certificate.

Following an impressive performance on debut at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, where she finished just 1.01 metres from the podium in the women’s javelin F38, and personal best results in both javelin and discus in the lead-up to the 2017 World Para-athletics Championships in London, Anderson arrived in the English capital in the form of her life. She finished second in the women’s javelin F37, but it was a non-medal event.

When Anderson made her Winter Games debut at Beijing 2022, she became one of a select few to compete for Australia at Summer and Winter Paralympic Games. Anderson finished in an impressive tenth position in the Women’s Giant Slalom Standing event, and recorded a superb result in the Women’s Slalom Standing category to finish in seventh.