Profile: Vanessa Low – Paralympian gold medallist & TrackSAFE ambassador

Australian Paralympian and TrackSAFE ambassador Vanessa Low lost both her legs in a rail accident when she was a teenager living in Germany. She now helps to educate young people and children about safety around railways and light rail lines.

“When I first moved to Canberra in 2016, there was no such thing as a light rail around. There were no trams or anything in the city,” says Vanessa.

“So, when the light rail finally got introduced in 2019, I got in contact with the organisation (TrackSAFE) and I said I felt like it could be very beneficial to not wait until an accident happens and actually do a bit of education around this before it does,” she says.

“I said, look, this is how I lost my legs. And I can give real safety advice and make people understand it’s not just a number on a piece of paper, of people who have accidents, but actually real stories behind them and real families that are affected. And that’s kind of how it started..”

At the beginning of her involvement with TrackSAFE, Vanessa started speaking with children at schools, as a lot of them take the light rail to school. “We thought this was probably the easiest way to have reach and make an impact early on.”

Vanessa also became involved in safety campaigns, and rail safety week, where she told her own story.. “I mainly just donate my time and try to find opportunities to help people understand why. It’s just sometimes remembering that we’re all human and we need to do our best to make sure everyone stays safe.”

Vanessa met her husband and fellow Paralympian, Scott Reardon, on a trip to compete in the London Paralympic Games in 2012. Scott lost a leg in a farm accident in Australia when he was just 12 years old, in 2002.

She now calls Australia home

After a year of being friends, the pair became a couple and Vanessa moved to Australia to be with Scott. At first Vanessa remained a competitor for the German Paralympic team, but being so far away from the rest of the team and other obstacles to training on the other side of the world eventually saw her switch allegiance to the Australian team.

The couple is now based in Canberra, where they have access to the Australian Institute of Sport, which boasts some of the best training facilities in Australia.

Speaking from her husband’s parents’ farm, a couple of hours’ drive from Canberra – where the couple had their end-of-year break – she says both she and her husband are originally from small towns, hers being Ratzeburg in North Germany and his Temora, NSW.

“So, we are not really big city people,” Vanessa adds. “But we do like the other amenities in Canberra that a big city can provide – restaurants, for example.”

Previously a competitor in both the sprint and long jump, Vanessa is now focusing on the long jump as her event. At age 31, she says she will probably compete a bit less moving forward, but still has her sights set on the 2024 Paralympics in Paris. She said the “silver lining” of the 2020 Paralympics being moved to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, means there’s only three years between the Games.

Paralympic ‘power couple’

Having trained alongside her husband for the past five years, this will continue even more intensely, as Scott has now retired from his events and become her coach.

Vanessa won gold and silver medals at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, while still competing for Germany. She then switched to representing Australia, to compete in the Tokyo Paralympic Games of 2020 (held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). She broke her own world record three times in the final, jumping to victory to win her first gold medal for Australia, with a final leap of 5.28 metres.

Husband Scott Reardon won a silver medal at the London 2012 Paralympic Games and a gold medal at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

The pair were dubbed the “power couple of Australia’s Paralympic team” in the Sydney Morning Herald in August 2021.

In terms of being safe around trains and trams, Vanessa says that she would love to just encourage people to be more mindful.

“I think if we actually understand that we need to live in the here and now a little bit better, that doesn’t only keep you safe and people around you safe, but also makes for a healthy-living, whole-quality life.

“So, I think rail safety is not necessarily just about standing far away from the track or whatever. I think it’s more being conscious that life is about what happens, and we need to be paying attention to what’s happening around us. Just to be more aware.”

Embracing diversity

Asked what else she talks about to the children she speaks to in schools, Vanessa says rather than focusing on having a disability, she helps the kids understand that “what makes us different also makes us special and makes us bring something different to the table.

“I help them understand that we can embrace our diversity, both within schools, as well as in sport and in everyday life. And I think that my biggest adversity turned into my biggest opportunity. And if more people understand that, we can embrace these differences as part of us. And not necessarily try to hide it and look like everyone else, but actually embrace who we are as a person. We can discover those opportunities for ourselves.”

She sees the role of sport as hugely important. “It has really grown as part of essential life, because sport is something that we can come together over, and is really independent from your gender, where you come from or what language you speak.

“And it’s something that unites us. I think if you focus more on what we have in common, rather than what makes us different, we can all come together as a society in a more positive way. I think sport is a really good enabler to help people do that. And sometimes it’s so easy to stay within your own little circle of people who you work with, but this allows you to actually be exposed to different societies and different communities.”

Outside of sport, Vanessa has a degree in audiovisual media and says she would love to dive back into a bit of that creative work, as she really loves doing it. She also enjoys mentoring younger athletes.

Long term, she says that she and husband Scott “have a bit of a long-term concept of what we want our lives to look like, but we are open to life changing all the time.”

TrackSAFE is a registered harm-prevention charity, established by the Australian rail industry, to reduce deaths, injuries and near hits on the rail network.

 

This article was originally published in Be Well magazine in March 2022.