Amanda Fraser

Growing up in a family of basketball players, Amanda Fraser was always surrounded by sport. It wasn’t until she was 12 that her parents looked for a sport for Amanda to participate in, mainly to help her self-confidence.

Following a search of what was available for athletes with a disability Amanda’s first competition was in athletics at the QLD School Sports Athletics Championships, where she won three gold medals!

Amanda didn’t stop there and decided to try other sports of which swimming was next. It was in the pool that Amanda felt for the first time that she could achieve something, especially when she found out about the Paralympic Games.

From that moment Amanda had dreams of representing Australia and committed herself to training in order to achieve this. Her dream was achieved when she was selected in her first Australian team for the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games where Amanda won two bronze medals.

Following the 2000 Paralympics Amanda was approached by then Australian head coach Chris Nunn to have another go at athletics. She did and from that moment she hasn’t looked back.

Amanda moved to Canberra in 2001 to train with some of the country’s best coaches at the Australian Institute of Sport. Hard work and commitment has seen continual improvement for Amanda in her pet event, the discus and in her new event, the shot put.

Amanda is now achieving goals that she had only dreamed about in younger years. As the current world record holder and reigning world champion for discus, things are looking bright for Beijing!