Paralympic
Potential
How an 8 month recovery
after a road traffic accident
sent Tania Nadarajah on
the path to Rio.
On 11th August 2009, Tania Nadarajah suffered a spinal injury that left her paralyzed from the waist down.
As part of her recovery over the subsequent eight months, she tried out numerous sports.
Within six years, Tania would be representing Great Britain at the Paralympic Games.
Profile
Photo by Karolina Skorek at Creative Factory
Tania is a positive, confident and competitive recurve archer.
She started training professionally in 2014.
Two years later she had been selected for the Rio Paralympics.
Starting Archery
Tania was working in PR for about 12 years after university when she was involved in a road traffic accident which left her with broken ribs, a broken collarbone and a spinal injury.
Part of her recovery plan at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury involved getting active and trying out a number of sports.
While receiving treatment, Stoke Mandeville hospital was playing host to the 'Inter-Spinal Unit Games' that helps to connect all the spinal units around the country.
"Its almost like a mini-Paralympic games to give people a chance to try out different sports" said Tania.
"I was actually the only girl on the team, so they had to enter me into everything in the hopes of winning a female medal because I was the only shot!
"That's actually where I tried archery for the first time."
It just so happened that one of the people assisting with the archery programme had previously worked with the GB Para team.
The assistant clearly saw some potential as Tania explains:
After her recovery time, Tania went back to work at the same PR company.
Archery was put on the back burner for the next four years, although in this time she did complete a formal beginner's course with the Royal Richmond Archery Club.
It was then in 2014 that she saw a social media post that would change her life forever.
After responding to the social media post, Tania was invited to join a talent identification day with Archery GB.
The twenty-two recurve candidates were narrowed down over two days to only three archers (including Tania).
With her talent identified she was immediately invited to join the GB Para Archery Academy and was on the Para archery team only six months after that!
She's been a full-time GB archer ever since.
Athlete Training
The journey from lay person to a professional athlete is not an easy one.
Learning to train the way a professional athlete does, takes time and endurance.
"A lot of it was learning how to be an athlete and learning how to train." explained Tania.
"So, building up your arrow volumes; learning how to do strength and conditioning training that’s specific to the sport; and also learning technical things."
Tania explains what it was like in the beginning:
Starting off small at only 10 or 20 metres, Tania slowly built up her confidence to reach the longer distances with great accuracy.
Tania's swift progression got her to the full Olympic and Paralympic recurve distance which sets the target at 70 metres.
As she progressed, her normal training routine became more intense.
"I'd be shooting between 150 to 200 arrows a day" explains Tania.
"That would be six days a week, generally at the full distance of 70 metres."
With the progression comes a change in gear too.
Tania progressed from shooting her training bow to one that could shoot the full 70 metres.
Tania draws a 37 pound bow with relative ease although she insists otherwise.
Road to Rio
Tania's journey to the 2016 Paralympic games in Rio de Janeiro was not as straight forward as you might think.
She had been training at the GB Para Archery Academy for about a year when she had the chance to do her first international - a world-ranking event in Holland.
The next big event in the sporting calendar would be the World Championships.
At the time, Tania had not been selected because the coaches thought she lacked experience at international events.
"I decided I would try my best, keep working hard and keep sending scores to them (the coaches) over the summer even after I wasn't selected" emphasised Tania.
"I guess because in all honesty I wanted to prove them wrong.
"I wanted to show them I was still improving and could still achieve good scores even after I wasn't selected."
What happened next was truly remarkable.
"I showed up with no expectations, I just wanted to enjoy the experience and go to my first big international competition" chuckled Tania.
"And what a big competition it was!
"I was the top ranked GB archer in the ranking rounds which then put me into the mixed team for that competition!
"We ended up finishing sixth which was much better than we ranked which was great."
What followed was the much coveted quota competition for the chance to win a spot at the Paralympic games in Rio.
For many athletes, the chance to be entered into the Paralympics is a dream come true.
Tania clearly recalls the feeling upon entering the stadium with the rest of the Paralympics GB team during the opening ceremony.
“The atmosphere was electric and the wall of sound that greeted us will stay in memory forever.”
The 2016 Paralympic archery was held at the Sambódromo, with a backdrop of favelas and the statue of Christ the Redeemer.
“I scored an international personal best during my ranking round, which I was really happy with” recalls Tania.
“Most para archery competitions don’t have an audience so shooting in front of one during individual elimination matches was different for me and the resulting nerves really affected me, so it didn’t go as well as I had hoped for.
“However, the mixed team event, where I competed with teammate Dave Phillips, was a really exciting one. We reached the quarter finals against Iran and ended up in a tie-break shoot off to decide who would advance to the semi-finals.
“In the end, both teams scored the same in the shoot off, so it was all down to whose arrow was closest to the middle. My arrow was just an inch further out than the Iranians’ highest scoring arrow, so we ended up finishing in fifth place. Definitely one of the most nail-biting moments in my archery career so far!”
Photo credit - World Archery
Lockdown
Now in lockdown, training has changed a lot.
As you might imagine, working from home is a bit different for athletes.
Where once Tania could shoot with other people, she has now been confined to shooting indoors....in her own kitchen.
While lockdown can be seen as a curse, it has had some unforeseen benefits for Tania.
Primarily, it enabled her to slightly recover from an injury incurred earlier this year.
"I actually took the opportunity to take a couple of weeks off at the beginning of the lockdown" said Tania.
"I would have been gearing up to go to the next international which was an important one - the European championships in Italy.
"But obviously Italy happened…
"With the problems they've had, that was swiftly called off."
This delay in schedule has given Tania the chance to change and improve her technique.
"It would have been risky to do at the time given that I was looking to perform at the European championships.
"But now that I've got a bit more time to work on it, there's an opportunity to play around."
The danger comes in making mistakes without proper supervision by a coach as Tania explains:
Luckily, Tania has had the full support of her coaches.
"I've had GB coaches on video, coaching me as far as they can from just watching video" explains Tania.
"I've also been trying to do some strength and conditioning work while I've been at home just with free weights.
"It's been quite hard but luckily my local club has reopened a couple of weeks ago, so I'm back to shooting at least once a week now at a further distance.
"But I haven't quite got back to 70 metres just yet."
Tokyo and Beyond
When lockdown began, one quota spot had been won in the recurve category at the World Championships.
Now that the sporting calendar has been shifted back by at least a year, what does this mean for the remaining quota spots for ParalympicsGB?
The next official big event is April 2021, which is the rescheduled European Championships.
This will also be an opportunity for archers to score quota spots for the delayed Tokyo Paralympics.
Archery GB will announce the full team next year.
Ever looking to the future, Tania has been brushing up on her language skills in anticipation.
"My Japanese is awful...Duolingo is really helping here!" laughed Tania.
"I'm sure my Japanese friends will leave me with no doubt that I need to really work on it more.
"I've also been brushing up on some French because the Paris Paralympics will be 2024, and hopefully I'll be there!"
Self-belief
Regardless of her current conditions, Tania is feeling a renewed sense of self-belief.
"Lockdown has been a really good opportunity for me to re-discover some self-belief" said Tania.
"I know that I put in a lot of hard work and that will be what hopefully allows me to get to where I want to be on a personal level"
Even with everything that's happened, Tania is ever looking to the future.
"In the next couple of years and looking forward into things like the Paris Olympics, hopefully that will be a success for me.
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