When long jump champion Vanessa Low charges down the Stade de France representing Australia at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, she will be looking for her family. In that moment, just before taking flight, where the new mum looks to the stands and gives her precious little boy Matteo a wave.
Close by in the coaching area will be the two-year-old’s proud dad and Vanessa’s beloved husband Scott Reardon. He is a gold medal winning three-time Paralympic sprinter and is now officially his wife’s dedicated full-time coach.
“It’s definitely a family affair,” Vanessa, 34, shares exclusively with Woman’s Day from the family’s Canberra home shortly before departing for Paris. “Scott retired after the Tokyo Paralympics to devote his time to being a dad and to coaching me, along with his motivational speaking business.
“It’s hard to imagine a stronger bond between coach and athlete, because I trust him more than anyone else in this world.”
Growing up on opposite sides of the world, this sometimes heartbreaking story of love and survival with its very own fairytale ending is the sort of stuff that movies are made of.
HER BEST LIFE
Born and raised in East Germany, in 2006 at the age of 15, Vanessa stumbled and fell off an overcrowded platform and into the path of an oncoming train.
The accident severed her left leg and put her in a coma for two months. During life-saving surgery doctors were forced to amputate the other leg. But never one to sink in self-pity, a determined Vanessa threw everything at her recovery, and by 2012 at the age of 21 qualified for the London Paralympics. She represented her native Germany in the 100m sprint, and her now pet event the long jump.
“For everything the accident took from me, the rewards far outweigh any of the bad,” she says. “I’m still here, still alive and living my best life.”
Scott, meanwhile, in 2002 at the age of 12 suffered a devastating farm accident when his shoelace got caught in the shaft of a tractor on his family’s property in Temora, NSW. He severed his right leg through the knee. When he met Vanessa, they realised if they were to be together one or the other had to relocate.
PARENTING CHALLENGES
In the end it was Vanessa who made the decision to move to Australia after representing Germany one last time at the Rio Paralympics in 2016, winning silver in the 100m and gold in the long jump. They tied the knot in 2018 and in June 2022 welcomed Matteo.
She says that while she is one of the great optimists, the challenges that come from being a new mum and a double amputee are not for the faint-hearted.
“I was in a wheelchair for nine months during the pregnancy, and to be honest, the easy bit was giving birth,” she recalls.
“The outside world can’t always see the day-to-day we face – a disability is like a shadow – sometimes you see very little, but sometimes it is all you see.
“Other parents would understand how tough it is to deal around the clock with a baby who has colic – Matteo really struggled in those early months. The mobility issues we encounter means that simple tasks like getting up and walking him around the kitchen at 2am meant one of us had to always be ready to put on our legs at any hour of the day,” she explains.
“We’ve designed a life where everything is accessible and doable around our home. That said, running after him in a wheelchair can be interesting – he sees it as play time!”
Their little family now complete, Vanessa is preparing for her fourth, and possibly her final Paralympics.
“Representing Australia and winning at the Tokyo Games was something special – but due to Covid it meant there were not the crowds and the celebrations that come with a gold medal moment,” she says.
“As a new mum, who only gave birth two years ago, I want to show the world that having a baby doesn’t mean you can’t come back to your sport – I want to win in Paris in the green and gold knowing I’ve given it my all.
“I want our little boy to grow up knowing that while his mum and dad have overcome a whirlwind of challenges, that our story is not driven by adversity – in the end it’s all about resilience and perseverance, made possible by hard work and a passionate and kind heart,” she says.
“This is not the end of the fairytale – it’s actually just the beginning.”
