Rachael Watson wrote herself a page in the history books in 2016, when – at her first Paralympic Games – she won a gold medal and set a new Paralympic record in the women’s 50m freestyle S4.
Doubling as Rachael’s international debut, it marked an incredible rise to the top for the young Queenslander, who only two years earlier had been struck down by Guillain-Barré syndrome – in essence, Rachael’s immune system mistakenly attacked her peripheral nervous system, paralysing her.
Prior to this, Rachael had been on track to represent Australia at the Paralympic Games as an S8 competitor – as a triplet born four months prematurely, she had spastic diplegia cerebral palsy, with Para-swimming forming part of her physiotherapy.
Reclassified as an S4 athlete in 2015, Rachael first caught the attention of the Australian Para-swimming team’s coaching staff at the 2016 Australian Swimming Championships in Adelaide, SA, where she …
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Rachael Watson wrote herself a page in the history books in 2016, when – at her first Paralympic Games – she won a gold medal and set a new Paralympic record in the women’s 50m freestyle S4.
Doubling as Rachael’s international debut, it marked an incredible rise to the top for the young Queenslander, who only two years earlier had been struck down by Guillain-Barré syndrome – in essence, Rachael’s immune system mistakenly attacked her peripheral nervous system, paralysing her.
Prior to this, Rachael had been on track to represent Australia at the Paralympic Games as an S8 competitor – as a triplet born four months prematurely, she had spastic diplegia cerebral palsy, with Para-swimming forming part of her physiotherapy.
Reclassified as an S4 athlete in 2015, Rachael first caught the attention of the Australian Para-swimming team’s coaching staff at the 2016 Australian Swimming Championships in Adelaide, SA, where she came within a hair’s breadth of the women’s 100m freestyle S4 world record. The 2017 edition would see Rachael clinch the women’s 50m freestyle S4 world record, which she holds to this day.
As Rachael prepares to return to Paralympic competition in August, she will do so as a dual World Championships medallist, having won silver and bronze in 2019.
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