A motorcycle accident changed New Zealander Neroli Fairhall’s life forever. At that time, when the 1960s were ending, she did not imagine that she would become the first paraplegic Olympic athlete in history.
It took Neroli a day to rescue her. Or almost: she was trapped for 21 hours, unable to move, without assuming at that moment that she had become paraplegic because she only thought about surviving. And she achieved it: she survived her life and made sure that every minute after that accident until she was 61 years old, when she died, was worth it.
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Although he entered the world of Paralympic sports quickly after the accident, he remained in history for his performance in Olympic sports. Because he represented New Zealand at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games in which he had become his sport: archery.
His encounter with archery
Until he was 25, when he suffered a terrible motorcycle accident, his sports were varied, but he had never practiced archery, also known as archery or, commonly called, bow and arrow.
It was Eve Rimmer, who in the early 1970s was New Zealand’s top Paralympic athlete, who suggested he try a competitive sport. Rimmer advised him to shoot. Fairhall did so, although as time went by she felt that archery might be the most appropriate for her, given that he had fundamental qualities to practice it.
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He had very good eyesight, an enormous ease of concentration, temperance and an unbreakable competitive spirit. She thus began to develop her career as a shooter, although she was part of the New Zealand Paralympic athletics team for four Paralympic Games.
But the 80s found her established as a shooter and there was a tournament that marked a before and after in her career as an athlete: the 1982 Commonwealth Games, which took place in Brisbane, Australia.
Neroli Fairhall won the gold medal at the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane. That was her jump to Los Angeles 84. PHOTO: IOC
In these Games, which are below the Olympic Games and on par with, for example, the Pan American Games, Neroli Fairhall won the gold medal. This achievement, in addition to putting her at the top of her game as an athlete, made her go down in history for a response to the press.
A journalist, who sought to belittle her performance, asked her if the wind had helped her win, considering that she competed sitting in her wheelchair. “Don’t know. “I have never shot standing,” she replied, leaving her interlocutor speechless.
The New Zealander arrived two years later in Los Angeles, at the 1984 Olympic Games, which were a sporting milestone: the first to have a Paralympic athlete competing against Olympic athletes.
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His position was 35th and, although he was far from the podium and the Olympic diploma, he forever entered the history of the Games for his perseverance and his desire to compete. The fact that it was her only Olympic competition was due to the fact that she did not go to Moscow 80, which she had also qualified for, due to the political boycott against the Soviet event.
At the age of 52, she made her last attempt to compete among Olympic athletes, qualifying for the 96 Atlanta Games, but a shoulder injury left her with no possibilities. She was a coach and manager of disability sport in New Zealand, as well as a highly recognized personality. She died on June 11, 2006 from an illness resulting from her paraplegia.
2024-03-24 08:01:00
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