Mali is living her dream
Local athlete Mali Lovell will be running her heart out at the Paris Paralympics
Paralympic sprinter Mali Lovell has reason to celebrate. A lifetime of hard work is reaping rewards – the runner is set to compete on the world’s biggest stage in Paris.
“I was dreaming of it,” Mali says of the Paralympic Games. “Now I’m actually here and literally living it.”
The Allambie Heights athlete is proud of her hard-earned spot in the 100 metre T36 and 200 metre T36 events – particularly as the slightest of times kept her from making the 2020 Paralympic Games. “I just missed out on Tokyo by 0.1 of a second,” Mali, 20, recalls. “But I was only 17 then, so I knew I had more in me.”
Mali won a bronze medal at the 2024 Kobe Para World Championships
The disability sport classification of T36 encompasses Mali’s impairment. Her mum, Melissa explains that Mali was born with ataxia, the ‘least common form of celebral palsy’. “It affects her motor skills, her coordination and her balance,” Melissa says, likening it to the feeling of spinning around, stopping, then trying to walk again. “So she didn’t walk until she was about three, and didn’t talk until she was four or five. She used sign language.”
Melissa explains that Mali’s had ‘a lot of tough years’ with weekly physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy.
Mali receives her ticket to the Paris Paralympic Games at the AIS in Canberra
Dave, Mel, Mali and Cleo at the AIS in Canberra
Coaches Katie Edwards (left) and Melinda Gainsford-Taylor with Mali
At 12 Mali started athletics, and with guidance from her coaches Katie Edwards and three-time Olympic sprinter Melinda Gainsford-Taylor, she started winning medals. She collected a silver medal for the 200m T36 sprint event at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championship, and a bronze at the Para World Championships in Japan earlier this year.
She currently trains six days a week, and while she says ‘giving up chocolate’ is a sacrifice she’s had to make, Mali’s looking forward to ‘eating croissants’ when she heads to Paris on 16 August.
There she’ll attend a 10-day staging camp in Montpellier before heading to the Paralympic athlete’s village in Paris. She’ll race on a purple track at Stude de France, France’s biggest stadium, where her mum, dad Dave and sister Cleo will cheer her on.
“I don’t want to put expectations too high, but a medal would be amazing,” Mali says. Just to run fast and get a PB (personal best) would be my main thing.”
Kate’s mission accepted
Kate McLoughlin will lead our Paralympic team proudly in her role as chef de mission
Getting to know a team of close to 160 athletes can’t be easy, but Australia’s Paralympic team chef de mission Kate McLoughlin sees it as a crucial part of her job. She has spent much of the year travelling the country, getting to know the athletes, their coaches and support staff. “Relationships are so crucial when you are leading a team of that size,” Kate, a Cromer local, says. “I don’t ever want to go to a Games and not know who someone is when I walk around the corner. If they’ve had a tough day I want to be able to go up at them and say: ‘How did you go today?’”
The Paris Paralympics will be Kate’s fourth as chef de mission. She became the first female chef de mission to be appointed by Paralympics Australia for Rio in 2016, after which she was awarded ‘best official’ by the International Paralympic Committee. She has worked on eight Paralympic Games, both summer and winter, playing a pivotal support role.
“I feel like I’m not critically important to their success, because that’s where their coach fits in,” Kate says. “But I guess hopefully I’m someone that they feel they can come to and say, ‘I’m having a problem with this, this isn’t working.’ Or trying to make sure the environment that they’re training or competing in is as close to what it would be like at home as possible. And just to make them feel at ease, so all they have to worry about is what they need to do on the field of play.”
Kate will oversee the 400 strong delegation of around 160 athletes and 140 support staff heading to Paris. The Australian Paralympic team is hoping to qualify for 18 sports. Kate’s job is to ensure a great performance environment is created for them, while supporting and celebrating their achievements.
“Some of the greatest memories I’ve got of the games I’ve led are those moments when an athlete comes home really late at night, they’ve been drug tested straight after their event, they’ve won a medal, they come back to the village, everyone is asleep and we are still up working,” she recalls. “And they come in and show their medal and just have that moment where they’re so excited.
“The challenges they’ve had to overcome in their lives makes the Paralympians just extraordinary human beings”
Kate at the Rio 2016 Paralympics athlete village welcoming ceremony
She recalls freestyle swimmer Maddi Elliot, who was 13 at the time and the youngest Australian to win a gold medal at the Paralympics, returning to the village after her win. “It was just so lovely being able to share that with her and share her excitement and help her call her mum.”
It’s a complex job as Kate also manages the logistics of transporting the athletes and their gear to the Paralympics. “The whole process started way back last year,” she says. “We did a roadshow in every state and territory to get sizes of all potential athletes.”
The 36,000 pieces of uniform are ordered a year out from the games, so they need to ‘guess as to what the team might look like.’
Four 20-foot containers have now left for Paris, containing essentials like massage tables, food like vegemite and tuna, Paralympic sporting equipment, wheelchairs and much more. Plus there are flights and transfers to organise – along with four horses bound for Paris. “Each horse needs a passport,” Kate adds. Who would have thought!
Kate with the team captains Curtis McGrath (2024), Daniela Di Toro (2020), Ryley Batt (2020) and Angie Ballard (2024)
As Kate heads to Paris with the Paralympic team, her husband Shane and sons Dylan, 12 and Brody, 10, will watch on from home in Cromer. She says the Aussie Paralympic team will put in a fantastic effort.
“I think the challenges they’ve had to overcome in their lives, regardless of whether they’ve been born with their impairment or whether they’ve acquired their impairment, the strength of their wills, their tenacity – and then on top of that, their training as elite athletes, just the same as the Olympic athletes – they’re just extraordinary human beings.”
Where to watch the Paralympics
28 August to 8 September | On television: 9Now
All Westfield centres will transform into official live sites for the Paralympic Games. Key events will be live-streamed from Paris, and there will be themed events and live music.
The live sites will be open manyh hours of the day, including in the early hours of the morning, and visitors are encouraged to dress up in green and gold. There will also be mini-sports pop ups and other activities at the sites.
Westfield’s Sydney Eye Tower will be lit up in green and gold during the Paralympic Games.
Westfield is an official partner of the 2024 Paralympic team. For more information, visit westfield.com.au