She’s our most successful female Paralympian, but even bigger dreams came true when she quit

Ellie Cole, Australia’s most successful Paralympian, is also a disability advocate and sports commentator. She’s just returned from Paris after calling the Olympics from the pool deck, before joining coverage of the Paralympics from the Nine studios.

Fitz: Ellie, I want to get to what’s happening in Paris, but can you tell us something of your own journey to Paralympics glory?

EC: One of my earliest memories goes back to when I was in rehab, as a three-year-old, right after my leg was amputated. I was learning how to walk again, and there was this giant teddy bear that I was walking towards. (But I went back about a decade later, and the teddy bear was not that big.)

“I’m honestly living my dream.” Nine’s Ellie Cole on the pooldeck at the 2024 Paris Olympics. 

Fitz: You’d lost your leg to a life-threatening cancer, yes?

EC: Yes, a neurosarcoma – cancer of the nerve sheath – that had not responded to chemotherapy or any other treatment. Even now, it is hard for me to get detail on what happened because my parents get so emotional talking about it. All Mum can say is that while driving me to the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne to have my leg amputated, she just couldn’t stop looking in the rearview mirror at me, knowing that I was not ever going to be the same again. But – spoiler alert – things have turned out pretty well!

Fitz: But things were grim at first?

EC: When I woke up after losing my leg I wasn’t aware that they had taken my real leg off and replaced it with a prosthetic. I knew something was different, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until two days later when the prosthetist came in to swap one of my prosthetic feet over. He just pulled my whole foot off, and I started screaming.

Fitz: So, the obvious thing was to get you to a swimming pool, yes?

EC: Yes. Swimming was, and is, a great place to rehabilitate after an amputation or a traumatic injury because you can keep your body moving, and all the joints, without too much gravity. You can learn how to use your body again.

Fitz: And you took to it, I guess, like a one-legged duck to water?

EC: [Laughing heartily – thankfully for me.] I did go in circles for a while. But, yeah, I loved it – and that’s what matters most. And because I was going around in circles, I had to figure out how to swim in a straight line. And that’s been my whole life’s philosophy since. Sometimes I feel like I’m going around in circles, but, you know, I keep working at it, and eventually, you’ll go straight, right?

Cole (left) and fellow Nine commentator Giann Rooney (right) with Olympic gold medallist Kaylee McKeown in Paris. “I still don’t think she realises just how good she is.”

Fitz: You must have worked out pretty early that you were very good at this?

EC: Not really. I just went through the normal Learn to Swim program alongside my twin sister, and I was never the most talented person in the water, but one thing that I did have is that I grew up with able-bodied swimmers, and I was always really competitive, and wanted to beat everybody, despite them having two legs.

Fitz: How does that work, swimming with just your left leg? Do you have to stroke harder with your right arm to compensate?

EC: You know what? I have absolutely no idea. It’s one of those things where I just get in and do it.

Fitz: So when did the Paralympics loom on the horizon, as in, “this is a great goal for me”?

EC: Well, after the Sydney 2000 Games I wanted to be an Olympian like Susie O’Neill. When I realised that was not really an option for me, I discovered the Paralympics in 2004, and made the Beijing Paralympic team in 2008, where I won a silver medal and two bronze. Then, I was this naive kid who didn’t really understand the enormity of what I was doing and was just there to have fun.

Fitz: Before you towelled them up them in 2012!

EC: Yeah, I did really well in 2012, with four gold and two bronze, which included beating one of my biggest heroes, South African swimmer Natalie du Toit.

Cole competing at the Tokyo Paralympic Games in 2021.Credit: AP

Fitz: And you also met the love of your life, who is now your wife?

EC: Yes, Silvia [Scognamiglio] was working for Paralympics Australia, and we met through functions over in London – and now we have a little boy, Felix.

Fitz: And now one of Felix’s mums is a media star ...

EC: I wouldn’t say a media star, but I just love to talk, and after retiring following the Tokyo Olympics – [Fitz, interrupting: with 17 Paralympic medals from four Paralympics, including nine gold] – yes, I started doing media work, and love being able to offer insights.

Fitz: It must have been extraordinary to be on the pool deck at Paris, starting with the Olympics?

EC: It was amazing. Being the biggest swimming super fan of all time, I was surrounded by people who have been working in the media industry for decades, and as the new kid on the block, my eyes were sparkling. When Katie Ledecky walked past me, I nearly fainted. And it was really special to be the first person that our own swimmers spoke to when they got out of the pool. They’re all good friends of mine that I’ve grown up with, and we’ve known each other since we were little kids.

Fitz: Are there some you look at, and think, “I’m good, but you, you, my friend, are just out of the box”?

EC: As an athlete, Jessica Fox always stands out for me. Just her demeanour, the way she carries herself, the way that she connects with her fans and her community. Everything about her is extraordinary. For the swimmers, it is Kaylee McKeown. She was the first Australian to do a double/double, where she won the 100 and 200 backstroke in Tokyo and Paris, and when I asked her about it, she didn’t seem to appreciate the enormity of it. She says, “I just like to swim, right?” I still don’t think she realises just how good she is ... that the enormity of what she has achieved in the swimming pool is ever going to hit her.

Fitz: As to the Paralympics, to those who don’t get it, is there an easy way of encapsulating its wonder?

EC: Obviously, the elite athleticism of the participants is so impressive. But for me, I think it really hit me when I was the flag bearer at the closing ceremony for the Tokyo Paralympics. I remember looking at these amazing athletes all around me who had all had something terrible happen to make them eligible to compete at the Paralympic Games. And yet, despite having lived some of the darkest of days, they had all come through that onto the other side and become the best athletes in the world. It’s just remarkable.

Double gold medallist Jess Fox dominated Australia’s media coverage of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.Credit: Getty

Fitz: There also seems less of a gap between Paralympians and Olympians than there used to be?

EC: Yes. Lots of us are friends. But I remember training with Cate Campbell, and we were talking about the difference between the Olympics and the Paralympics. And I actually said, “Cate, I don’t think people find Olympians that relatable because you’re all just genetic freaks of nature.” But a Paralympian, we’re not genetically gifted. We’ve just been dealt a bad hand, which, at one point in someone’s life, everyone is going to be dealt. We’ve overcome that, and we have become the best parts of humanity, all encompassing, in this one giant movement. And the greatest thing about the Paralympics, I think, is that it really challenges the way that somebody thinks about disability. Everyone has a preconceived idea of what it means to have a disability, but then you look at the Paralympics, and it turns everything you think you know about it on its head. I really, really like that.

Fitz: RAH! The Paralympics also seems to keep getting bigger.

EC: Yes. Watching the Paralympics grow from Beijing all the way through to Paris has been absolutely remarkable. I remember I didn’t have any role models with a disability when I was young. But for young kids now to grow up and be able to see Maddie de Rozario, to be able to see Alexa Leary, I just wish I had that when I was younger, and it would have changed so much about the way that I saw myself. And these days, Paralympians have all got so much more corporate support, which is wonderful – they no longer have to dig into the back of their pantry and pull out the cheap two-minute noodles just to feed themselves. In my case, I was really lucky to have Toyota backing me for nine years, and even in retirement. In fact, in 2018 they dropped 160 grand on upgrading a new prosthetic for me, which ...

Fitz: What? $160K? Did it have four wheels, a carburettor, and state-of-the-art surround-sound??

EC: It’s got computers. And I can walk in water, with it. Thanks, Toyo…

Fitz: That sounds to me like a gratuitous plug for your sponsor that you’ve seamlessly worked in, but ... just this once. Where to from here for you? What would you like to be doing when you’re 40?

EC: Exactly what I’m doing right now. I’m honestly living my dream. I absolutely love it. I want to keep working in the media. I really enjoy promoting the Paralympic movement and I enjoy just promoting sport in general. It doesn’t even feel like work!

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