Repaired, Reclassified: Wheelchair Rugby Legend Primed For World Championships

Champion wheelchair rugby player Ryley Batt has revealed the punishing toll of injuries that kept him sidelined for nearly a year after the Paris Paralympic Games and came perilously close to ending his career.

Batt said he was told he should quit playing after he endured “excruciating” pain at the Games, where he helped the Steelers win the bronze medal. 

He underwent surgery soon afterwards to effectively reconstruct his left elbow and left shoulder but has admitted “the body is still aching”. 

After eight months off and several more months regaining his strength, confidence and match-fitness, the six-time Paralympic Games representative is back as part of the Steelers squad which left for Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Tuesday, where they will attempt to retain the World Championship they won in Denmark in 2022. 

“I went through Paris pretty much playing with one arm,” Batt said.  

“Any sort of pushing sent knife-like stabs through the front of my shoulder. On top of that, my elbow had completely seized up, I couldn’t even touch my face, couldn’t bend it straight, so I had to lean over to push. 

“I had surgery after the Games and the surgeon said, ‘Ryley, these are the worst elbows I’ve ever seen in my life’, which was pretty hard to take. 

“He put me in for both surgeries at once [left elbow, left shoulder] and pretty much formed a new elbow there.

“It made it really hard to get back into wheelchair rugby. I lost a lot of strength, lost a lot of confidence, and it took me a good eight months of training to get back to playing about 60 percent of the time on the court, and I’ve still been building the last several months. 

“I’ve been putting more load in the shoulder and elbow, so that potentially at the World Champs, in some of these big games, I might be able to play 90 to 100 percent. That’s what we want, and that’s probably the best thing for the team, but it’s been a lot of work. 

“The body is still aching, it absolutely hurts.” 

The Steelers’ 12-player squad was named last month (see below). It includes a range of accomplished athletes and a new generation of talent, led by captain Chris Bond and vice-captain James McQuillan.

The Australians’ first match is against Canada on August 17. They will also face New Zealand, Brazil, USA and the Netherlands before the finals start on August 21. 

While Batt’s physical state may remain tenuous, the Steelers received a major boost earlier this year when he was reclassified from a 3.5 to a 3.0 following a medical review.

In wheelchair rugby, the classifications of the four players on court from each team must not exceed a total of eight points. Batt’s reclassification, therefore, opens a range of new combinations for Acting Head Coach Lewis Quinn and his staff to consider. 

“It’s a very strategic game, wheelchair rugby,” Batt said. 

“We have our main lineups, with me and Bondy leading the way as high pointers. But now we’ve got all different types of line-ups for different scenarios. Having myself going down to a three-pointer really changes the dynamic of our team.”

Batt started his career as a 2.5 before he went to a 3.5 at his first Games, Athens 2004, which is the highest function in the sport. 

“But, over the years, the sport has changed, different athletes have come in and pushed the boundaries,” he said. “At the same time, my body’s deteriorated and I’ve lost of lot of my range of motion. 

“I guess it might look like a bit of an old man rule or something like that,” he said of his reclassification, “but I probably should have been a three-pointer all along. There are many coaches and players around the world who have said to me, ‘This is where you should have been from day dot’. They knew I should have been a three-pointer.”

The result is that the Australian team can now evolve from the ‘Batt and Bond Show’, as Batt said it had been described, to a more agile set up. 

“It’s not just the old Australian team that had one or two line-ups, with the two 3.5s dominating and carrying the ball, it’s the Australian team now … I couldn’t even tell you how many line-ups we’ve got, maybe 15 to 20, definitely five or six very competitive line-ups. 

“With me now being a 3-pointer, it allows more function down in those low point positions, whether they might be able to catch and pass better, or have some more speed, it allows us to match up against other teams a little bit better. It gives us a little bit more of an edge from what we’re used to.”

The Steelers will need every advantage they can find to maintain their outstanding World Championships record – they have reached the final of every edition since 2010, including wins in 2014 and 2022. They head into the tournament in good form, having won the silver medal at the recent Canada Cup, which was Batt’s first competition after his reclassification.  

“What’s driving me, why I’m still playing, is that I may have achieved everything I want in sport – I’ve won World Championships, Paralympic Games, played 360-plus games for Australia and been to six Paralympic Games, I don’t need to do anything else for myself personally – but I do want to try to win for the team, and I want to show these newer athletes who have never won a World Champs or a Paralympic gold medal what it’s like. 

“Not only that, but I also want to make sure I look back when I retire and am able to say that I gave absolutely everything I can to this sport and to the green and gold, because you don’t get this opportunity forever. 

“You only have a short amount of time and I want to look back and know that I gave everything and I’m super proud of the effort and the energy I put into representing Australia.”

Australian Steelers team list – 2026 World Championship 

Competition schedule 

Matches will be streamed live on the World Wheelchair Rugby YouTube channel.