WHEELS OF FORTUNE
18 months ago, Melanie Griffith’s life changed after a motocross accident, now she’s an international in four sports with her eye on the Paralympics...
IT was always about speed for Melanie Griffith. At eight years of age she fell in love with motocross, the off-road motorbike racing akin to cross-country running with lots of bumps, hills and flying through the air. A life-changing accident in a race 18 months ago didn’t alter her outlook however and adjusting to living in a wheelchair has seen her soar through the new world of parasport.
In those 18 months – 14 since she got home from hospital and the National Rehabilitation Centre – she has represented Ireland in FOUR different sports and is on the pathway to the 2028 Paralympics. All this while pursuing a demanding degree in Trinity College and negotiating the world from a different perspective.
‘I was always mad about sport but motocross was the main one, and then rugby,’ she explains. ‘Before my accident I played a lot of sport – hockey, badminton, swimming, soccer. But motocross was the one I spent all my time and money on.’
Now 21, Griffith never played basketball before Rehab but has rapidly developed into one of the best players in the country, this weekend competing with the Emerald Rollers – the national team – in Loughborough University.
‘I had my accident on July 22nd 2022, left rehab on November 30th, and I went to my first basketball session a week later. It’s been 18 months now and I’ve represented four national teams, in GAA, basketball, rugby league and badminton.
‘Because I am new to parasport I had lots of sports pursuing me. I was initially pushed towards shot putt but found it boring. I played badminton for 10 years so I tried it in the chair and enjoyed it. I went over to a competition in Edinburgh and came home with three golds and a silver so last Wednesday I went over to Wales to get fitted for a badminton chair and
I’m hoping to go to the Spanish International in April with some backing from Badminton Ireland.’
The array of sport available is a key component in enriching the lives of Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA) athletes. ‘Getting back into all those sports is how I dealt with it mainly,’ says Griffith, ‘sport is what I wanted to do.’
Multiple sport requires multiple equipment, as Griffith explains: ‘I have a day chair, a basketball chair, which was bought for me by Lord’s Taverners Ireland, and now a badminton chair. They’ve all different features – different camber, antitip, no brakes – and you’re strapped in so if the chair goes over you go with it.
‘It depends on your disability. If you’ve a lower limb amputation you’re not going to struggle with your balance, but I have a lower spine injury so I sit low in the bucket in the chair so I don’t lose my balance. There’s a points system involved in basketball based on the degree of injury among your five players. I’m a two-pointer and you can only have 15½ points on court.
The Emerald Rollers plan to play international matches soon. ‘We’re hoping to go to the Europeans over the summer – as we are all Under-25 we might enter that one in Spain. It will be great to test ourselves internationally. We are a very young side – I’m second oldest at 21, the oldest is 23. One of the girls is 14.
‘There are a lot of young girls playing the sport so there is a future if we can get the support we need to train. We went over to play in Britain before Christmas and won three of our four games. Individual sport is lovely – there was great camaraderie in the motocross paddock – but when you’re travelling, you’re on your own. I love travelling with a team, it’s such good craic on a coach or a plane with a team.’
Griffith plays with Killester, who just missed a place in the Insuremyhome.ie finals in Tallaght last month. ‘We have our own IWA cups which we play at the end of the season in the National Indoor Arena. There’s nine clubs – Cork have two, Limerick, Galway, Killester and Ballybrack in Dublin, North-East Thunders in Dundalk, South-East Swifts and Clonaslee.’
Is Paralympic basketball part of her dream?
‘It would take a long time to get there – this is our first year competing, it only started up as an academy just before I started playing wheelchair basketball. That’s why I was looking at the individual sports from my own personal potential.’
Griffith grew up in Paulstown, Co Kilkenny and went to school in Kilkenny College. Her family, who now live in Bagenalstown, Co Carlow, were not particularly sporty, but there were quad bikes around the farm and she and her brother discovered motocross via YouTube videos.
On a family holiday to France, aged eight, she came across a place you could hire go-karts and motocross bikes and gave it a go. As soon as they came home she bought her own bike.
‘The motocross scene is small in Ireland. I used to compete in England because it’s huge over there. My top finish was second in the UK Championship, and twice finishing third in the UK Girls Nationals.
‘Then in 2022 they started up a women’s class in the Irish Championship and I was leading it when I had my accident. It was the second last round and I hadn’t been beaten all year, I only needed to finish the race and I had it won.
‘The second last race was in Doon, Co Offaly, my home track. There was no pressure on me race-wise, but I did feel under pressure that weekend. It was raining for a start, and although we had the women’s race on the Saturday, I was also down to compete in the men’s race on the Sunday. I had raced against the men the previous round and finished 26th which put me in the pro class for the next race, the first time any woman had done that.
‘So I was buzzing for the race, I know the track like the back of my
hand. I knew I just had to finish and I had the women’s championship won. I normally don’t mind the rain but there was something about the day… I was sitting in the van with my hood up, on my phone, and I just didn’t want to go out. it never happened before in 12 years of racing.
‘I don’t know if it was internal pressure, I don’t know if it was the track, but I nearly didn’t go out for the first race. The girls had to psych me up, saying “come on Mel, you have to go out.”
‘So I went out and the rain eased, but on the first lap I was leading and tipped over, nothing serious. I got back up like I did many times before but I was back in the pack with a lot of slower people in front of me. I worked my way back through the field and on the next lap I went around a corner, passed the girl who was leading and hit the next jump.
‘I landed on a guy who was slower than me, went off the side of the track and landed on rocks. The bike went all the way down to the bottom of the hill but I was left there with a shattered back.
‘There was something weird about that day in my head. Maybe the pressure was coming from thoughts of the Sunday. And with the rain everything was getting to me.
‘It wasn’t even the biggest crash I’d had but it did a lot of damage; it shattered my T12, broke my L1, three fractured ribs. Not a scratch on me elsewhere.
‘I spent 11½ weeks in the Mater waiting for a bed in Rehab. That was hard. Once my ribs healed I wanted to get out. I had been a very active person so it was boring sitting down all the time.’ ‘Once I arrived in Rehab there was a lot more going on. It was a 12-week program but I was out the door in seven and flying ever since.’
Griffith was 20, just finished her second year at Trinity. ‘The first two years were Covid so we were all online and it wasn’t great. After the crash I took a year off.’ This year, her first as a student in Dublin, she’s back studying micro-biology and lives on campus too.
‘Trinity gave me a sports scholarship, which was great, but they don’t have a rugby or basketball team, and they don’t have any of the sports I play. I use their sports centre and they support me but I am trying to get them to get a set of chairs so they can have social wheelchair basketball. Anyone can play and we might find some people with disabilities coming out to play.’
Griffith was also recruited by NextGen, a Paralympics Ireland program to find Paralympians for 2028 and beyond. There she first met Jason Smyth, Ireland’s most decorated athlete with six gold medals at four Paralympic Games.
‘I was three months out of Rehab when they emailed me asking would I be interested in NextGen. So, I went to the launch and there were just three aspiring athletes and three Paralympians there. People were saying, “there’s Jason”, and I asked “Who’s Jason?” I hadn’t a clue who anyone was!
‘Now I’m a huge fan of his and watch him on Dancing with the Stars.’ Melanie travelled to Galway and Dublin to encourage youngsters to try out sports – one IWA athlete, Tiernan O’Donnell decided to take up rowing and is already training with the Paralympic squad.
While badminton is the sport most likely to get Griffith to the Games, she was up for almost anything.
‘My name became known very quickly and all these people kept inviting me try their sports. Before the crash I’d tried almost everything, and when I ended up in a chair I adapted straight away.’
Griffith played rugby for Tullow and Trinity but when she found she didn’t qualify for wheelchair rugby union – you have to have at least three limbs impaired – she tried rugby league.
‘I went to a training session in Dublin and three weeks later I got my debut against Scotland in the Celtic Cup. I absolutely love rugby league but the only problem is there’s no clubs for it in Ireland, only our national team. Half the team are English players with Irish heritage who play Super League on a weekly basis so if I want to stay on the team I will probably have to play in England in the summer.’
Another of her Ireland caps came through GAA. ‘I never played camogie before,’ says Griffith, ‘I was asked to try out for their international floorball team, which is an indoor version of hockey, which I had played in school.’
In Prague the European floorball championships were played with an ice hockey-style stick and plastic ball but the mixed squad of Irish hurlers were pitched against mostly hockey teams from the continent.
It was a 12-week rehab but I was out in 7 and flying ever since
‘I was very slow around the court but I knew a lot about hockey and one of the main things was to keep the stick down, but all the hurlers were swinging above head height, so I showed them how to play. I was vice-captain and while I didn’t get as much game time as I would have liked I enjoyed the games.’
Two summers ago, Griffith was working in a Motor Factors in Portlaoise and delivering pizza in the evenings to fund her motocross.
‘My life plan was to do my microbiology degree, never to work in sport and never to be an athlete, because motocross didn’t have that opportunity and I wasn’t ever going to be a good enough rugby player.
‘All I did was go to college, work, train, compete,’ she recalls.
‘Eight hours sleep than back up and do it again. Then the accident happened and a complete change in my life.
‘Sport has really thrown itself at me. I can’t commit myself 100% to the college work in the way I used to. I can’t spend all day in the library as I have to go training.
‘So whether I use my degree or not I’ll figure out after college but I love working with sport and especially disability sport. I’ll see what opportunities come up.’
She might even return to motor sport. ‘I was out go-karting last week and my old sponsors are building me a kart,’ she grins.
‘The bikes need to be adapted for you but a kart is the same thing, just hand controls – it’s the same race – I do love racing, it’s the speed.’