Vanessa Low knows all too well that change can happen quickly and drastically. At the age of 15 while living in Germany she fell from a train platform, lost both her legs, and spent the next 5 months in hospital fighting for her life. When she woke from her coma the future she had planned for herself had evaporated, the confident sporting teenager was faced with massive uncertainty and fears that could have caused her to retreat from her life and shelve her dreams. But Vanessa did none of those things, she discovered paralympic sport and she thrived.

Vanessa incredibly found "the beauty within the change", and her athletics career took off. She has competed at 3 Paralympics, 2012 and 2016 where she represented her native Germany before making a shift to represent Australia at Tokyo 2020 after marrying Aussie paralympic gold medallist Scott Reardon. In Rio Low won Gold in the Long Jump and Silver in the 100m. In Tokyo she had us glued to our TVs, Low was unstoppable in the Long Jump, breaking the world record three times in just over one hour to win the gold medal.

Vanessa is an inspirational human, her story is phenomenal and her courage is breathtaking, she speaks about adversity as being an opportunity and she has absolutely made the most of her opportunities to date.

Follow us on Instagram @thefemaleathleteproject

Find Vanessa on instagram @vanessalow90.

This episode is brought to you by Workplace Law [www.workplacelaw.com.au]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.