PARNABY Kaia

General
JAPANESE EXPERIENCE
In 2020 she played her seventh season as a pitcher for Japanese team SGH Galaxy Stars, after making her Japanese Women's Softball League debut in 2014. Her Japanese career has included more than 500 strikeouts, and she was in Japan when she found out softball had been included on the 2020 Olympic programme. "It was one of our days off and we were in Japan. It was me, Stacey Porter and Melanie Roche, we had a couple of friends visiting us from Australia and we found out it was going to be back in the Olympics and we were in Kyoto so we raced to the golden temple and we had a day out in Kyoto. It was the perfect backdrop for us, we were in Japan, we were in where it was going to be, we were in the best sights ever and were immersed in the Japanese culture knowing we were going to be there for the next Olympics. It may not be in Paris but hey, let's go for LA [in 2028, and] hopefully, [when] Australia host it in 2032." (sportingnews.com, 17 Mar 2021; wbsc.org, 14 Sep 2020)

OLYMPIC DREAM
At age 10 she participated in the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, performing as a back-up singer and dancer to Australian singer Nikki Webster. She says that ever since then she has hoped to return to the Olympic Games as an athlete. "I was fortunate enough to be in the opening and closing ceremonies [at Sydney 2000] as a performer so I really took that opportunity and ran with it. The chance to be on the other side and be an athlete in the Olympics just gives me goosebumps every time I think about it. I've actually spoken to a few athletes from 2000 about what it was like to be able to do that so to walk into the stadium in Tokyo is something I still dream of." She believes the postponement of the 2020 Games could help the Australian team. "A lot of us debuted for Australia in 2009 so for us to hold out another 12 months, it's a small misstep in our whole 12 year progression. As much as it hurt us a lot finding out it was getting postponed, we can be another 12 months prepared, we can find out some things we may not have found out about ourselves and I think it's going to help us grow as a team. We never actually thought we'd get to play an Olympic Games when we started our careers, so we're just excited to get there." (softball.org.au, 24 Nov 2018; insidethegames.biz, 16 Dec 2020)

FURTHER STUDIES
After completing a bachelor's degree in kinesiology and rehabilitation science in 2013, she began a master's degree in secondary education and teaching at the University of the Sunshine Coast in 2019. (LinkedIn profile, 01 Jan 2019)