Ellie Cole

When Ellie Cole left her room at the Australian Institute of Sport and headed for the airport on her way to the London 2012 Paralympic Games, she told herself she would return home a gold medallist. Not only did she win gold, she did it four times over, touching the wall first in the Women’s 100m Backstroke S9, Women’s 100m Freestyle S9, Women’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay 34 Points and Women’s 4x100m Medley Relay 34 Points. Ellie also collected two bronze medals in the 50m and 400m Freestyle.

After a successful second Games campaign, she took an extended break from Para-swimming to undergo and recover from double shoulder reconstruction surgery. Then, in a stellar return to the international scene at the 2015 IPC Swimming World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, she won three gold and two silver medals, and broke the Women’s 100m Backstroke S9 world record twice.

As a hot favourite in the lead-up to the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, Ellie claimed medals in each of her six events, but it was not until her final race on the final night of competition that she surged to individual gold, finishing 0.39 seconds ahead of the silver medallist, Nuria Marques Soto from Spain, in the Women’s 100m Backstroke S9. Shedding tears of joy on top of the podium, the win remains one of Ellie’s proudest sporting moments to date.

She also returned home from Rio with gold in the Women’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay 34 Points, silver in the Women’s 50m Freestyle S9, Women’s 400m Freestyle S9 and Women’s 4x100m Medley Relay 34 Points, and bronze in the Women’s 100m Freestyle S9, with her six-medal haul securing her the title of Australia’s top medallist from the Games, alongside her Dolphins teammate, Lakeisha Patterson.

When the Commonwealth Games arrived on the Gold Coast in April 2018, Ellie was eager to improve on her dual bronze medal haul from Delhi 2010. Undeniably the fastest of the three Australians in the pool in the Women’s 100m Backstroke S9, she finished nearly five seconds ahead of her bronze medal winning teammate, Ashleigh McConnell, to claim silver.

Hailing from Frankston, Victoria, Ellie was diagnosed with sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, at the age of two. After a round of treatment that did not reduce the cancer, her parents decided to amputate her leg. She began swimming lessons as part of her rehabilitation.

Ellie wore national colours for the first time as a 15-year-old at the 2006 IPC Swimming World Championships in Durban, South Africa. Making a splash on the international scene almost immediately with a silver medal in the Women’s 50m Backstroke S9, she cemented her status as a future star of the Australian Paralympic Team when she returned home from the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games with one silver and two bronze medals, marking the first and last time she missed gold at a Paralympics.

Outside of her own hectic training and competition schedule, Ellie can often be found poolside coaching junior swimmers. She also enjoys cooking, playing wheelchair basketball and working out at the gym.