Vanessa Low

Vanessa Low
Vanessa Low in 2019
Personal information
Born (1990-07-17) 17 July 1990 (age 34)
Schwerin, Germany
Sport
Country Germany (2009–2017)
 Australia (2017–present)
SportParalympic athletics
Coached byScott Reardon
Achievements and titles
Paralympic finals2012, 2016, 2020

Vanessa Low OAM (born 17 July 1990) is a German-born Australian Paralympic athlete competing in T42 sprint and long jump events.[1] Born in East Germany, she gained Australian nationality in June 2017.

In 2016, Low was the only actively competing female track athlete with two above-knee amputations of her legs. Despite the location of these amputations and despite her having to compete with athletes having one fully functional leg, she successfully made it to the finals of all of her sprint and long jump competitions at both the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London and the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio. In Rio she won the gold medal with a 4.93m world record distance in the T42 long jump and a silver medal in the T42 100m competition.[2] This was repeated in the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo with the T63 long jump gold medal and world record even though she was classified T61.[3]

  1. ^ "Athlete Profile: Low, Vanessa". paralympic.org. Archived from the original on 31 March 2016. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  2. ^ "All Results of the Summer-Paralympics, Rio 2016" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 September 2016. Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  3. ^ "Olympic Stadium - Long Jump - 2 Sep - 19:00 - Official". Archived from the original on 3 September 2021. Retrieved 3 September 2021.