Making the right decision

Thinking on the daily if I was making the right decision, to leave a massive part of my life behind and to move on, to find something that I joy in the present; and looking back to my tough decision it was the right one to say goodbye to Team Dixon along with track & field. This was a tough decision on my end, as my entire identity was caught up with being an athlete and having mates over the east that competed in the same sport I did.

During my short time in the athletic arena, I’ve achieved Under 18 and Under 20 Australian records across Javelin, Shot Put and Discus under my classification as an F33 athlete. In between these four years, I have been allowed to compete at a local level at the Western Australian Championships, as well as a couple of times at the Australian Championships back in 2017 and 2019. During the last four years of high school, I lived either in a classroom surrounded by people that didn’t like me, or I would be either in my backyard or at the WA Athletic Stadium training my bloody heart off for the next competition.

What is a classification?

Classification is a number, letter, or a mix of both that represents your disability and how your body moves in the sport/event that you’re competing in. When you get a chance to watch the Olympic Games next year, make sure that you keep the screen up to what the Paralympics, which many of my friends call the games, as the Olympics is just warming up the field for our para-athletes who are the best in their field 🤗

One thing that I wish they will do is to merge the two games, the Paralympics, and the Olympics into one set of games. Maybe, spread the games over a month. The reason why I say this is because there isn’t enough representation when it comes to the Paralympic Games and the spirit that comes from these games. Most of the advertising is directed to the Olympics, alongside the streaming. I remember trying to watch some of the Winter Paralympic games years ago, and I just couldn’t because people weren’t streaming it. This is why I say merge the two games PLEASE.

Making the tough decision to leave the sport?

My final season of athletics was rough. The summer of 2019 & 2020 was expected to become a high achievement season for me, but it turned out to be the last season of my athletic journey. I have had people compete with me on and off during the past four years, but seated throws … like any sport in athletics is a solo sport, and you rely on the team behind you and your training to make these results possible.

What I mean by a team is your coach, physio, PT, family and friends, etc. In my journey it was just my coach, physio, PT and family; as everyone who could help me with my sport is based over east. Yes, I had their contacts there if I needed their support, but I only talked to them at nationals. Their help and support meant the world to me and my parents, a massive shout-out goes to Commonwealth elite athlete, Julie Charlton who coached me in 2019 while the championships were happening, I appreciate what you did … you’re such a great athlete Jules. What I didn’t expect was the crowd behind me, cheering and support, this is what I rarely got back home in WA; this was the highlight of my athletic journey while I was competing in the women’s seated discus in 2019 (Open event against adults).

The para spirit didn’t come for me until the Australian championships began in 2019, and it continued into the summer of 2019 and 2020. This was the spirit that I was begging for throughout my journey, but being the only person competing in the entire state it gets quite lonely. Yes, as I’ve said before people come and they go, but it’s not the same as the para family I made over East. My spirit of competing was lacking, and I wasn’t as focused as I was in the previous seasons.

Leading up to the state championships in February a friend of mine and her mother were starting to ask questions about nationals. This season a close friend of mine decided to give seated throws a crack. I wasn’t quite comfortable with this, as I wanted to beat my records. When her mum found out that only certain classifications could have support workers out with them while they were throwing her mum thought this was instantly not fair, and tried her best to change her daughter’s classification so her support worker could come out on the track with us.

My worst nightmare to this day is exactly this, especially from someone who I’ve known almost my entire life 🥺 Classifications are set in stone so cheating doesn’t happen. An example of this is to imagine an amputee running against someone in a wheelchair, who would win? The amputee of course. This is why classifications are set in place; yes, there’s not much difference between her disability and mine, but there’s still enough of a difference that she’s another classification than I am. A few years have gone by and she told me that she didn’t enjoy seated throws and she was only doing it to spend time with me; I was mortified and furious.

My takeaway from this journey

I was incredibly lucky that the National Championships for 2020 were cancelled due to COVID-19, otherwise, I seriously don’t know what would’ve happened, and what our friendship would have looked like afterwards. I could imagine that if it did happen I would have let an official know about this so that 1) she would either not compete or change back to her classification, 2) get pulled out of the competition together including can’t compete in her events, and 3) if she did go through this and was successful she would’ve cheated to break the F33 Australian records that I worked so hard over the years to achieve.

These are the reasons why I feel out of love with the sport, and no longer continue practising seated throws. I’m very grateful for the experience and journey that I’ve had, but unfortunately, because of her (plus several other things), I’m no longer friends with her, and I will never go back to the sport. Just a little takeaway from today’s blog is that It’s never alright to cheat and turn your back on a friend. Also, it’s completely alright what journey you take in life, it should be your decision and not someone else’s.

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