Inside Emilie Miller’s journey from four-time world cycline champion to 2024 Paris Paralympic wheelchair rugby player

Emilie Miller defied the odds when she transformed herself from one of Australia’s best junior swimmers to a four-time cycling world champion. Now she has become a Paralympic wheelchair rugby player set to challenge for gold. This is how she did it.

Wheelchair rugby star Emilie Miller. Picture: Contributed.

Superstar Paralympic athlete Emilie Miller admits she laughed when she was approached to play wheelchair rugby.

Now the 29-year-old swim coach is set to compete on the world stage when she represents Australia at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games.

As a child, Miller was ranked inside the top 20 female junior swimmers for her age in Australia until a training incident left her with a quadriplegic spinal injury.

The then 12-year-old slipped off the diving block, hit her head on the bottom of the pool and suffered a C5-C6 spinal injury that left her paralysed from the waist down.

Despite the setback, Miller returned to the pool to try her luck as a para-swimmer but said she never found the same passion as she did before her injury.

“It just wasn’t the same and that drive or love of the sport wasn’t there for me so I first transitioned to hand cycling in 2011, four years after my accident,” she said.

Emilie Miller in action for her Bathurst Club.

The talented sportswoman was a star from the get go, as by 2015 she had made the Australian team for the World Championships and World Cup.

Impressively, she then made the World Championship team again in 2017, 2018 and 2019 where she became a four-time world champion.

By 2021, after 10 years on the track, Miller was highlighted in a Paralympics Australia talent identification program and was quickly ushered into the sport of wheelchair rugby.

“I switched to try something new and it’s been another great experience,” Miller said.

“I think moving from an individual sport into a team sport has been my biggest takeaway as I really enjoy being able to share the success and the experience of the highs and lows with everyone else on your team.”

Wheelchair rugby star Emilie Miller. Picture: Contributed.

• MEET EVERY AUSTRALIAN ATHLETE COMPETING IN THE PARALYMPICS
  

The 29-year-old, who is originally from Bathurst, NSW, relocated to the Sunshine Coast in June 2023 and works as one of the swim coaches at Sunshine Coast Grammar School.

Miller said she found out she had been selected in the Australian Paralympic team following a tournament in Canada earlier this year.

“It was quite a gruelling process to be selected as we played a series of matches and then had meetings with the coaching panel who ran us through some questions and self reflection processes.

Sunshine Coast sporting talent Emilie Miller will compete at the 2024 Paralympic Games. Picture: Patrick Woods.

“They told me afterwards that I had been selected and I was very overwhelmed and excited.”

She said she was eager to get over to Paris.

“It’s been quite special to have been watching the Olympics and seeing everyone compete, the media, the crowd, the village and everything that’s around so it’s making me quite nervous but very excited at the same time.”

Miller and her Australian teammates will begin their podium charge on August 29 when they take on Great Britain from 7.30pm.

Originally published as Inside Emilie Miller’s journey from four-time world cycline champion to 2024 Paris Paralympic wheelchair rugby player