Despite having only taken up cycling in 2007, Susan Powell has proven herself to be a seasoned professional on the track and made headlines when she won Australia’s first gold medal of the London Paralympic Games.

Susan claimed victory in the 3km individual pursuit, ahead of fellow Australian Alexandra Green (bronze). With her dad watching on in the crowd, Susan describes the win as one of the greatest moments of her life, followed closely by the silver medal she won days later on the road.

Amanda Carter is one of the great comeback stories of the Australian women’s wheelchair basketball team. At the Sydney 2000 Games, Amanda ruptured a tendon off her elbow against fierce rivals Canada. Knocked onto her right side, Amanda’s arm became trapped under her wheelchair, leaving the Dandenong Rangers star requiring an elbow reconstruction.

From the country town of Horsham in Victoria to the heights of American basketball, Jannik Blair is a star in the making.

Since first playing wheelchair basketball in 2005, Jannik plays for the Dandenong Rangers in the National Wheelchair Basketball League, where his impressive form as a one-pointer caught the interest of Australian men’s wheelchair basketball coach Ben Ettridge. He soon made his Australian debut in 2009 Asia Oceania Wheelchair Basketball Championships in Dandenong, which he considers one of his proudest moments.

Her rapid rise in international table tennis suggests that Melissa Tapper grew up with a table tennis racket in her hand but it wasn’t until she was 12 that the Melbourne local first picked up the bat.

Tasmania’s Ryan Hughes lined up in Australian colours for the first time in 2010 at the UCI Para-Cycling Road World Cup in Segovia, Spain. He beat a field of the world’s best cyclists to come sixth in the time trial, while he crossed the line in 22nd place in the road race.

Since then, the 25-year-old believes he has what it takes to become one of two Tasmanians with the potential to make the Australian Team for the London Paralympic Games.

Born in 1991 with significant disabilities in all four limbs, Ahmed Kelly was left at a Baghdad orphanage where he spent the majority of the first seven years of his life. Then in 1998, he met Moira Kelly from the Children’s First Foundation, who brought Ahmed and his brother Emmanuel, also born with limb deficiencies, to Australia for medical treatment.

Michelle Rzepecki has been training with the Australian squad since 2011 and having played goalball for much of the past decade, is hoping to become a permanent fixture on the Australian women’s team.

Having played for New South Wales at a number of national championships, winning the 2004 championships against a strong Queensland side has been the highlight of Michelle’s goalball career so far. She has also watched goalball change significantly in the past 10 years and is a strong supporter of growing the sport in Australia.

Maddison Elliott is just like any teenager. She likes to skip, talk to her friends and play with her ipad. But unlike most girls her age, Maddison is making a splash on the international swimming stage.

Diagnosed with cerebral palsy that affects her right side when she was four, at 13 Maddison became the youngest Australian Paralympian to win a gold medal in London, when she won gold as part of the 4x100m freestyle relay as well as silver in the 50m freestyle and bronze in the 100m and 400m freestyle.

Like many of his teammates, Nick Taylor competed at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. But unlike members of the gold medal winning Australian team, he did not win a gold medal, instead playing for his native South Africa.

Having left South Africa and become an Australian citizen, Nick was picked up by Australian Rollers coach Ben Ettridge and put into the Australian wheelchair basketball program.

It’s been a meteoric rise in wheelchair rugby for Darwin born Cody Meakin. Since taking up the sport in 2010, he made his first Australian side for the Great Britain Cup in 2011 and believes his best form is yet to come, despite being part of the gold medal winning side at the London Paralympic Games.

Growing up, Cody was like any other teenage boy – he loved his cars, loved his music and loved playing rugby. Now in his early 20s, he still loves all those things except he now plays a different style of rugby.