How Shae Graham’s Paralympic journey began after making a bet

It began with a lighthearted joke with her brother and ended with winning a glorious bronze medal in the Paralympics. Shae Graham’s motto of “Dream big and work hard, and once you’ve achieved that, dream bigger!” has helped her to achieve her dreams but it has not been without a lot of hard work and dedication.

In 2004, when she was just 18 years old, Graham was involved in a car crash as a back seat passenger that left her with a spinal cord injury. Prior to her accident, Graham played touch football, soccer and rugby union which she retired from after her accident as she felt it just wouldn’t be the same.

It was after a silly bet with her brother in 2013 that she decided to give wheelchair rugby a go. To her surprise she fell in love with the game and hasn’t looked back.

Graham described representing Australia at the Paralympics as “the pinnacle event of her sport, the biggest competition you will ever play in. The thrill of going out there in front of a crowd, full of your family and friends, there won’t be anything that will match that.”

To achieve as much as Graham has, has meant finding a balance between life and rugby. She has had to do intense training five days a week, even with injuries, before going to work straight after.

Graham explained, “that it can be very hard to stay motivated because it is a lot sometimes and I get really tired. But I really love the sport that I play. I have been lucky, only like minor injuries, you know, like broken fingers, bruises, little cuts and scratches, crushed fingers, things like that. And I once had a lot of tendon injuries, but that’s from overuse and overtraining. I’ve also had hyperextended shoulders and that’s just from falling out of the chair. Weird!”

When Graham is not training you will find her at her day job as a Library Officer at The Melbourne Museum. As a librarian, she has a great liking and passion for collectable books, with some being on ornithology, featuring beautiful illustrations and historically significant works about bird species. She presents exhibits that showcase unique and detailed artistry of natural history, which she finds superb.

Graham explained, “that switching from the tranquil and calm environment of being a librarian to fast paced action on a rugby court is like yin and yang.” She loves the high intensity of full contact sport but then she also finds the calmness of working in a library amazing too.

As for the future, Graham explained that since there were many young children coming through, she would love to move into more of a leadership role, such as coaching but especially in and around the women’s side of the sport, as there is a big push toward there being female-only teams and competitions. She stated that next year they were hoping to have the first ever Women’s World Cup at the end of the year and she would be very keen to play and coach that team. She also hopes to go to the next World Championships, which is in 2026. Regardless of this, she is already a champion in anyone’s book.

Please note: Images were added to this Junior Journo competition entry by Kids News editors and minor edits applied as per publishing requirements and editorial guidelines on the site.