Lauren Parker’s Paralympic redemption as she bring home triathlon gold

From eating disorders, rotten luck, unfathomable mental battles and constant agonising pain since a horrific 2017 bike accident, ‘being an overcomer’ saw Lauren Parker power home to clinch a Paralympic gold.

Australia’s Lauren Parker celebrates gold in the Triathlon on day five of the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games. Picture: Getty

Lauren Parker was waiting in a van for her coach. It was cold outside. She lifted her bare feet to the heater. Suffered third-degree burns without feeling a thing. Just another chapter in her rousing and rocky ride towards a Paralympic gold.

It’s more of a Rocky ride, to be honest. As in Balboa. On a blue-sky morning in Paris on Monday, with the Grand Palais to her right and the Eiffel Tower to her left, the paraplegic Parker powered home to win the triathlon from American rival Kendall Gretsch.

Parker gets my vote as Australia’s toughest sportswoman. There’s been self-harm, eating disorders, rotten luck, constantly agonising neuropathic pain and mental battles you cannot fathom. She’s all heart, all soul, all ­effort, all determination, all-conquering. One of her tattoos says She Is Unbreakable. Another says Still I Rise.

“I can’t believe I’ve done it,” she said. “It’s been a long journey to get here and I couldn’t be more proud and happy. I’ve been through a lot of things. It’s just about being an overcomer. Adapting. Looking at the positives. Anything is possible if you keep believing and keep working hard at what you love to do.”

Unbreakable. She rose. Stayed strong. Her racing chair bounced around Paris’s cobblestone streets like a 4WD. She finished more than a minute ahead of Gretsch, who beat her by a heartbreaking tenth of a second at the Tokyo Games. “I’m always in pain from my chest down to my feet,” Parker said. “No matter how much pain I put myself through in sport, it’s not as bad as my nerve pain is.”

Emotion at the finish? “Relief,” she said. “It’s been a big build-up, a three-year build-up. I’ve said ever since Tokyo that I wanted to get gold at Paris, and I will get gold at Paris. No pressure!”

Parker racing through the streets of Paris. Picture: Getty

Staying strong is what she has done since being plonked in a wheelchair after her horrific bike accident in 2017, since she was told her sporting days were over, since she told her doctors to get stuffed. Balboa never had to fight like this. Parker would eat him alive.

Hard yakka. Every second of every day. “Through every single training session for the last three years, this has been my driving force,” she said. “Sport brings emotional roller-coasters from week to week. I’ve been through a lot emotionally, personally, physically. There’s been a lot of things in my life to overcome. That’s why today is so special.”

Parker’s favourite quote is, “The pain you feel today is the strength you feel tomorrow.” She was an elite triathlete before her existence turned upside down and inside out. She’s honest about her predicament. It sucks. She would give anything to get out of her chair. She might not have felt her feet burning in her coach’s van at Utah before her world title triumph in 2021 but her body is far from comfortably numb.

“Close to 90 per cent of my body, I feel like I’m being stabbed with needles and it’s horrific,” she said. “I always need to have my mind occupied and that’s why I love training and competing. It’s my escape from reality.”

Parker has two events to come. The road race and time trial at the cycling. Three events across two sports? Stay strong. “The goal is to get three gold medals,” she said. No pressure. Again. Just the way Australia’s toughest female athlete likes it.