Angie Ballard

Angie Ballard is a world-class competitor with vast experience and a super coach in her mentor, Louise Sauvage. Her most successful Paralympic campaign to date is London 2012, where she won silver in the 200m and 400m and bronze in the 100m.

At the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Angie won gold in the 1500m, and backed it up the following year at the IPC Grand Prix in Nottwil, Switzerland, where she broke a world record in the 400m that had stood for six years.

When Angie was seven-years-old, she was involved in a near-fatal car accident that paralysed her. She recalls waking up on the side of the road unable to move after her father asked her to sit up. She spent six weeks in hospital before returning home to Canberra.  Angie commenced rehabilitation in Sydney the following year and, having been exposed to disability early (her brother has spina bifida), it wasn’t long before she adapted to life in a wheelchair.

Angie experimented with a number of sports after attending a Wheelchair Sports NSW Christmas camp, but ultimately credits her PE teacher with finding her competitive edge in wheelchair racing. Looking for new ways to challenge herself, she began competing soon after.

She won her first Paralympic medal at Athens 2004 after taking home gold in the 100m at the IPC World Para-athletics Championships in Lille, France two years earlier, and though preparing to defend her 400m and 800m world records at Rio 2016, Angie did well to claim silver in the 4x400m relay and bronze in the 100m and 400m.

In 10 years’ time she hopes to have added Paralympic gold to her collection of medals, still be involved in wheelchair sport, and to be in a position to support herself, her family and the other important people in her life.