Join AUS Squad
Back To News
Nearby the nearly 400 hundred kit bags filled with thousands of items for our Paris-bound Australian Paralympic Team lie three pallets of goods packed and ready to be sent to a rival country.
The 500-kilogram shipment will soon arrive in Vanuatu, providing the Pacific Island nation’s Paralympic hopefuls with the equipment that could prove the difference in their quest to compete on the biggest stage in world Para-sport.
The boxes are full of sport apparel, active wear, training gear and shoes, donated by Australian athletes and sports. They include stock left over from the Australian Paralympic Team’s Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022 campaigns and stock used at Team Processing sessions, where hundreds of potential team members for Paris 2024 were fitted for team kit by Paralympics Australia’s outfitting partners.
The clothing donation is part of a concerted effort by Paralympics Australia to play a leadership role in the Oceania region, which includes providing Pacific Island nations competitors access to the Australian team’s resources in the Paralympic Village during the Games.
Paris 2024 Chef de Mission Kate McLoughlin said many athletes in our neighbouring nations don’t have access to high quality training gear.
“Often they’ll use their training gear as everyday clothing,” McLoughlin said. “For example, if an athlete is given a pair of brand new shoes to train or compete in, it might be their main or only pair of shoes and they’ll wear them at work, on weekends and wear them to the point that they’re no good to train in.
“To be able to give them additional pairs of shoes and additional training clothes that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford is giving them a better chance to keep pushing to be elite athletes, competing at the Paralympic Games.
“Shorts, T-shirts, all this stuff that our athletes take for granted, that they just buy for themselves or get given by sponsors or their sports – it’s not like that for these athletes.”
Sending stock to Pacific neighbours was McLoughlin’s idea and began with a smaller shipment of goods sent to several nations last year. This much larger batch will go solely to the Vanuatu Paralympic Committee. McLoughlin said Paralympics Australia would ask for more donations from athletes and sports after the Games and “spread the love” to other Pacific communities that would benefit.
Nine Pacific island nations will likely be represented at the Paris Games, featuring between an expected 25 to 40 athletes and staff.
“We are the largest National Paralympic Committee in the region, we’re probably the most well-resourced, so we feel the responsibility to support our Pacific Island neighbours however we can,” she said.
“We’ve lobbied the Paris Organising Committee to have the teams from our region within our allotment at the Games so that we can help provide resources, such as medical resources, nutrition resources, and just access to any kind of advantages we’ll have during the Games to try and help them have the same kind of performance environment that we do.”
By David Sygall, Paralympics Australia
Published 3 May 2024
