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Lauren Parker, the first paratriathlete to wear Bahrain’s acclaimed team’s jersey, continues to prove she is a fighter with gold pumping through her veins as she glided into victory in her home-town competition.
She raced to victory at the Newcastle ITU Paratriathlon Oceania Championships on Sunday, bringing her closer to reaching her target of success at the Paralympic Tokyo Games in 2020.
The 30-year-old Australian won in 1 hour, 26 minutes, 9 seconds ahead of archrival and world champion Emily Tapp. It was the first time Parker, who took bronze in the Commonwealth Games, has beaten compatriot Tapp.
Parker came out of the water first after a 750m swim and extended her lead in the 20km cycle leg then was not overtaken in the 5km road race.
The victory meant so much as she not only helped design the course for what was the first paratriathlon event to be be staged in the region, but it was also held in conjunction with the Sparke Helmore Newcastle City Triathlon, an event she had raced a number of times as an able-bodied triathlete.
Parker, speaking exclusively to GulfWeekly, said: “The Oceania Championships are very significant for me. It was at last year’s edition of the event held in St Kilda where I had my first taste of Para-triathlon racing, finishing second and securing my place on the Australian team to compete at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
“I’ve come a long way since then and, hopefully, I can set myself up for another successful season.”
Parker, who is one of the newest members of the Bahrain Endurance 13 team, is determined to make selection for the Paralympics that will be held in Japan and she has also set her sights on becoming a world champion this year.
“The 2019 racing season started with the Oceania Championships in my home town of Newcastle and now I will compete in a number of World Cup and World Series events around the globe, before the World Championships and Grand Final in Lausanne, Switzerland in August,” said Parker.
“My goal is to become world champion in 2019 and I am looking forward to racing in the Bahrain Ironman 70.3 at the end of the year.
“This will be my first visit to Bahrain which I’m greatly excited about. My ultimate goal is to win the gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.”
Parker is no stranger to victory as she is a three-time Australian champion in 5km open water swims and has procured several national titles as a swimmer in the 200m backstroke.
She has been qualifying and racing in Olympic trials in still water swimming from the age of 14, gaining many state and national swimming titles from the tender age of seven.
“In that time, I became one of the best swimmers in Australia in both pool swimming and open water swimming,” Parker explained. “At 19, I heard about a local triathlon event and I thought I would try it out. I became hooked straight away.
“Up until the age of 24, I competed around the world in Olympic distance races. I wanted a new challenge, just loved the adrenaline generated from longer distance events.”
She entered her first Ironman 70.3 and instantly loved the endurance side of triathlons and soon began competing in races throughout the world.
“I won the first Ironman race I entered, which qualified me for the Ironman world championships in Kona, Hawaii in 2014. In 2015, I again qualified for Kona and achieved a second place podium in the 25-29 age groups. It was the sweetest podium. I turned professional in 2016 with the goal of one day becoming Ironman world champion as a professional athlete.”
However, those plans were thwarted. After racing in Europe and a solid training block back home in Newcastle in 2017, Parker was preparing for the Port Macquarie Ironman as her first major attempt of winning as a professional athlete.
Two weeks out from the race, on April 18, 2017, during her final training ride, her life changed dramatically.
“With only two minutes to go on this ride, both my tyres exploded,” Parker recalled. “I was travelling at more than 45km per hour and my body was thrown into a guardrail.”
She sustained multiple injuries. She broke her shoulder, suffered four broken ribs, a punctured lung, fractured pelvis and a broken spine. Most seriously though, her spinal cord was severed leading to no sensation or movement from the waist down.
Parker was rushed to the hospital for scans and underwent spinal surgery. She was told that she had a one per cent chance of ever walking again and that she would need to get used to living the rest of her life in a wheelchair.
“I was absolutely shattered,” stated Parker. “I spent the next six months in hospital and rehab and underwent three major surgeries. In rehab, I was told that I would never be an athlete again and that I needed to accept where I was and that was in a wheelchair.
“This gave me the determination and drive. I wanted to prove everyone wrong.
“Following the initial operation, the doctor told me that I had zero to one per cent chance of ever walking again. I was obviously devastated upon hearing this and it was really a life-changing moment. Since the initial accident I have had one spinal fusion, three spinal cord surgeries and two additional surgeries. Each of the following surgeries has also been very stressful. My accident was 22 months ago.
“After the hospital and rehab, I got straight out and back into training because of the love for the sport that I have. When I was in rehab, I was given the opportunity to get back in the water for the first time. I thought, being a swimmer that I would get straight in and show everyone how good I could swim. But it all came crumbling down on that day when I got into the 15m rehab pool and tried to swim.
“My legs just kept sinking and I couldn’t put two strokes together. I paddled over to the end and Brad Fernley, a champion ironman and triathlete and my training partner, who was with me when the accident happened, gave me two options.
“He told me to go back to my hospital room and give up, or to stay in the pool and keep trying.
“I chose the latter – not to give up – and I ended up doing three continuous very slow laps.
“I proved to myself that anything was possible with a ‘never give up’ attitude. Even though I was feeling devastated at the fact that I spent 20 years of training to be a fast swimmer and now felt like that all my hard work had gone to waste, having a positive attitude was key to moving forward.”
Her last surgery was five weeks out from racing at the Paratriathlon World Championships. She started losing feeling down her right arm and up to her chest, as well as losing strength in her fingers.
She had to be rushed in for another eight-hour operation due to complications and fluid building-up in her spinal cord.
“I was told that I was three weeks away from becoming a quadriplegic,” added Parker. “Luckily, that didn’t happen.
“I still had the determination to get to the start line at the World Champs and came third three weeks after getting out of the hospital. No matter what tears me down I will always get up stronger!”
Also at the end of her rehab stay, Parker was offered an opportunity to travel to San Diego, US to be hosted by the Challenged Athletes Foundation. During her stay there she met hundreds of other athletes who had been challenged physically in different ways and had to overcome their own battles.
“On this weekend there was one significant thing that I noticed, and that was, the smiles on everyone’s faces,” said Parker. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There were people that have been injured at war and lost their legs, little children with no arms and legs running around on their stumps and having fun.
“This was an experience that had an enormous impact on me and I thought to myself, if they can do it then I can do it too. If these people can still have smiles on their faces, then I can smile too. Following this trip I decided I would return back to Australia and start training again, inspired by the people I’d met in San Diego.”
Parker competed in her first paratriathlon in Melbourne, Australia, in January 2018, and took second place on the podium. This gained her selection into the Australian team for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
“Since my accident, I got a third place at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games in the paratriathlon, two times World Series wins in France and Italy and a third place podium at the Gold Coast 2018 Paratriathlon World Championships,” said Parker. “I also won the New South Wales Parathlete of the Year Award.”
She was also nominated and became a finalist in one of Australia’s most prestigious sporting accolades ‘The Don’ Award named after legendary cricketer Sir Donald Bradman.
“I do feel like I am a role model for many Para-athletes especially the junior athletes,” she said. “Hopefully, what I can do in training and racing might inspire and motivate some of these athletes to get into the sport and strive to be the best they can be and give them hope that anything is possible no matter what they’re going through.
“There is always a way.
“If this accident has happened to me for a reason, if I can just inspire one person, then maybe all of this has been worthwhile.
“Life can definitely deal up some bad cards sometimes but I’ve learned that you’ve just got to take it one day at a time, set a small goal then achieve it. Then the next day you can set a bigger goal, and achieve it. There are days when it gets super hard and a voice inside your head might tell you to give up but you’ve just got to dig in and keep going.”
Parker thanks her family and friends, in particular Fernley. “I had great family support from my mum, brother, sister-in-law, but even with that support nobody really understood what I had to deal with on a daily basis,” added Parker.
“The Number One supporter for the last 11 years is my best friend, Brad, who has stuck by me 100 per cent. Brad has been by my side, helping get me back and going again ever since. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here today or achieved what I’ve achieved.
“He has helped keep me focused on what I need to achieve each day. Whether it is a medical appointment, or a meeting, or getting back to training and racing.
“Also, I believe that my sport saved me.
“If I didn’t have sport in my life I don’t know where I would be today. It’s the love of my sport of triathlon that has given me the drive and determination to get back into training and racing. I’m a very competitive person and strive to achieve the very best that I can.
“I want to not only prove it to myself but keep going for all the people who believe in me and have offered their amazing support.”
And, her message to the people of Bahrain is simple: “No matter what you’re going through, there is always someone in a worse situation that you can inspire.
“Keep smiling, keep positive and never give up because you never know how many lives you can change.”
