23-year-old Torita Blake is one of Australia’s most promising young talents in Para-athletics.
As a proud Indigenous woman, Torita was first inspired to play sport when Cathy Freeman won gold in the women’s 400m at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. 12 years later, she made her Paralympic debut in front of tens of thousands of fans who, in 12 years’ time, might also compete at an Olympic or Paralympic Games.
At the London 2012 Paralympic Games, Torita contested the women’s 100m T38, women’s 200m T38 and women’s 4 x 100m relay T35/T38. Although she missed the podium, to have competed at all was an exceptional achievement in itself – just four months prior, at the 2012 Australian Track and Field Championships for Athletes with Disabilities in Melbourne, Torita had suffered 11 bone fractures in the women’s 100m ambulant.
The following year, Torita placed seventh in the women’s 100m T38 and …
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23-year-old Torita Blake is one of Australia’s most promising young talents in Para-athletics.
As a proud Indigenous woman, Torita was first inspired to play sport when Cathy Freeman won gold in the women’s 400m at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. 12 years later, she made her Paralympic debut in front of tens of thousands of fans who, in 12 years’ time, might also compete at an Olympic or Paralympic Games.
At the London 2012 Paralympic Games, Torita contested the women’s 100m T38, women’s 200m T38 and women’s 4 x 100m relay T35/T38. Although she missed the podium, to have competed at all was an exceptional achievement in itself – just four months prior, at the 2012 Australian Track and Field Championships for Athletes with Disabilities in Melbourne, Torita had suffered 11 bone fractures in the women’s 100m ambulant.
The following year, Torita placed seventh in the women’s 100m T38 and women’s 200m T38 at the 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships in Lyon, France, before switching her focus to the women’s 400m T38, the same event in which her hero had made history in 2000.
At the 2015 IPC Athletics World Championships in Doha, Qatar, Torita won her first international medal, a bronze, in the women’s 400m T38, and matched this result at the 2017 World Para-athletics Championships in London, England.
At the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, Torita looked a chance to win her first Paralympic medal. She pushed the top three fastest competitors in the women’s 400m T38 the entire lap, but finished just outside the podium in fourth place.
On top of all this success, Torita also set an unofficial world record in the women’s 800m T38 in 2015.
Off the track, Torita is an ambassador for Indigenous Australians. She completed a pathways program at Open Universities Australia in 2015, and would like to undertake a Bachelor of Arts (Indigenous Studies) in the near future.
In 10 years’ time, Torita hopes to be a Paralympic gold medallist, world record holder, and mentor to young athletes with a disability.
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