Sally
Pilbeam

The triathlon runs in Sally Pilbeam’s blood, but she didn’t take up the sport until after battling cancer.

Sally’s father was a triathlon and she always wanted to give it a go as she loved swimming and running, it was the bike leg that she initially feared.

The West Australian lost her right arm at the shoulder due to cancer in 1999, the next year Sally watched on with pride as para-athletes competed at the 2000 Sydney Paralympic Games.

Sally made her green and gold debut at the Australian Championships in 2013 and a year later won the Oceania Triathlon Union Para Triathlon Oceania Championships, a title she retained in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

The two-time winner of the ITU World Triathlon Grand Final, has been a huge success, having topped the podium in 2014 in Alberta, Canada, and 2015 in Chicago, USA.

At the 2016 World Championships in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, she finished with silver behind France’s Manon Genest and another silver medal the following year.

Sally was well placed leading up to triathlon’s introduction to the Paralympic Games at Rio 2016.

However, when the program for Rio was released, the classification she competed in was not included.

When the same thing happened for Tokyo 2020, Pilbeam tried to qualify in a higher classification before eventually stepping away entirely.

Relief came in late 2021, when the International Paralympic Committee’s Governing Board approved the expansion of the triathlon program for Paris 2024.