LOW Vanessa

Classification
T61, F61 (IPC, 11 Mar 2021)

Type of Impairment
Limb deficiency (evangelisch.de, 16 Nov 2010)

Origin of Impairment
Acquired (Athlete, 06 Nov 2019)

Impairment Details
In June 2006 she was run over by a train at a railway crossing. Her left leg was severed and she was in a coma for two months. To save her life, doctors also had to amputate her right leg. (Athlete, 06 Nov 2019; evangelisch.de, 16 Nov 2010)

General
TOKYO END
She plans to retire from competitive Para athletics after the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo. "Putting my body through another Games, I think will probably take a little bit too much out on it, knowing that one day I want to be running around with my kids and maybe even grandkids. I think it's a healthy balance of being committed and having a passion but also knowing when it's time to move on. I have so much outside of sport that I'm enjoying, that I'm grateful for and that often has to take second priority. Being away for a lot and missing out on family birthdays, weddings and all these things. I do want to give that other part in my life a little bit more attention and hopefully start a family sometime soon as well." (tokyo2020.org, 02 Jul 2020)

NEW LEGS
When she first tried training on her sports prostheses it took her some time to get used to them. "In the first session I fell over basically every other step, and with my disability being quite a bit higher than those I compete against, I think I sometimes forget that back then it was not normal for someone with my kind of disability to walk, let alone run. There was just no one to look up to, there was no one in the Paralympics with my disability. For me, it just meant I had to figure out everything on my own." (canberratimes.com.au, 13 Sep 2018)

RETIREMENT AND RETURN
She retired from competitive Para athletics after competing at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. In 2013 she visited a friend, German Paralympian Katrin Green, in the United States of America, and it was there where she rediscovered her love for the sport. She lived and trained in Oklahoma City, OK, United States of America, for three years until mid-2016, when she returned to Germany due to her visa becoming invalid. (paralympic.org, 24 Sep 2015, 11 May 2016)

FROM GERMANY TO AUSTRALIA
She began competing for Australia in February 2019, having previously represented Germany. (IPC, 15 Feb 2019)

TATTOOS
She has the latitude and longitude coordinates of four cities tattooed on her right arm, including the three cities where the Para athletics world championships were held from 2011-2015 [Christchurch, New Zealand; Lyon, France; and Doha, Qatar]. She also has the coordinates for Bengaluru, India, due to her having made her international debut there at the 2009 World Games. (Facebook page, 30 Dec 2015)

FURTHER STUDIES
She has studied for a bachelor's degree in computer science at the Wilhelm Buchner University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt, Germany. She has also studied a long-distance degree in digital media. (paralympic.org, 11 Mar 2015; LinkedIn profile, 01 Jan 2015)