Trish’s on her winning weigh
A TOWNSVILLE athlete who travelled halfway across the world to pursue their dream has come away with a pot of gold.
Powerlifter Trish Wallace’s incredible rise from a young Ravenshoe girl with spina bifida to an athlete representing Australia on the world stage hasn’t been easy, but she’s enjoyed it all the same.
“It all feels so much more real now. To actually compete was sort of the dream, but once I got over there and was doing it, it felt so surreal,” Wallace said.
She formed part of a fourstrong para-athlete team that represented Australia in
Pyeongtaek’s Asia Oceania Open Championships across the end of June.
After achieving strong results at home while training with Favian Arcidiacono at Heavy Metal Strength and Powerlifting Club in Townsville, Wallace was invited to travel to South Korea to test herself among the best.
“The refereeing is so much harder. I knew that going in that it was going to be different, but to actually witness it, it was much, much harder,” Wallace said.
While Wallace was the only rookie on her team, she managed both an individual gold medal, and a bronze medal as part of the Australian team, something that means so much more than just winning a competition.
“I actually got to carry the flag of Australia, I was asked because I was the rookie of the team. I was proud as punch to get to do that,” Wallace said.
While Wallace’s hopes were to back up a strong performance with a tilt at the Commonwealth Games, she’ll instead be setting her sights on the 2024 Paralympics in Paris.
“Right now, it’s one of those ‘just keep going’ sort of things. I’m looking at Dubai next year around about this time, I’ve started training again right now, and I’ll take whatever comes up in between,” she said.