Ruby Storm

Hard Work All Part Of The Fun For Ruby

Ruby Storm is a rising star of international Para-swimming but her motivation stems from much closer to home.

“I just try and show everyone that ‘Hey, I can do this and don’t underestimate me’,” the 20-year-old said.

“I just focus on what I want to achieve to make myself proud, make my family proud and make my squad proud.”

Storm, who has an intellectual impairment, is a highly successful team player and has earned the respect of her squad. Of her five medals in Paralympic and World Championship competition, four have come as part of the Mixed 4x100m Freestyle Relay S14 team, including silver at Tokyo 2020 and at the Worlds in Manchester in 2023. Not bad for an athlete who was scared of the water as a child.

Achieving great things at Paris 2024 is the goal, but Storm’s approach is to keep focus on the joy she gets from swimming, competing and being part of the Australian Dolphins.

“I understand things in a different way,” she said. “I’m still learning to understand it more.

“I feel like when I’m under pressure I don’t swim as great, so I just focus on being happy and that’s when the really good swimming happens.

“I love heading into training to swim hard and to try and prove them wrong.”

Storm showed her class when, after falling short of her goals at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, she posted on social media: “Not the result that I had been training hard for but an experience I’ll never forget. I’m grateful to have competed at the first Commonwealth Games that S14 females have been included in. Always proud to represent the green and gold as part of this incredible team.”

At the Tokyo Paralympics, Storm was one of three athletes on the Australian Paralympic Team with Indigenous heritage. She is from the Wiradjuri tribe in Deniliquin, NSW, and grew up in Traralgon on the lands of the Gunaikurnai people. And, yes, she was born on a Tuesday.