North Queensland’s Ainsley Hooker came home from last year’s Invictus Games in Düsseldorf with a slew of medals and personal-best performances.
But her take away from those games wasn’t sport-related at all.
The former Army driver and Giru resident said it all came down to putting herself out there and forming new bonds with military members with similar stories.
It’s advice she’s sharing with her teammates as she takes on the challenge of this year’s Warrior Games in Florida with 29 other Aussie competitors.
The Warrior Games are an annual adaptive sports competition, bringing together hundreds of wounded, injured and ill current and former-serving US military members, alongside a small contingent from Australia.
“When people say, ‘oh you did so well with the medals at Invictus’, I think, ‘I don’t care about that’,” the 37-year-old below-knee amputee said.
“It was the fact that I went out there and just did it. I didn’t feel embarrassed; I didn’t feel nervous competing in front of these people.
“No one looks at your amputation like they do in the shops. No little kids were like, ‘that’s a robot leg’; everyone was just so accepting.”
In 2007, Ms Hooker sustained a bad ankle injury. Following failed surgeries, she was left with chronic pain and a dying, twisted foot and ankle. After 13 years of torment, she made the decision to amputate.
Ultimately, the move proved freeing, and enabled her to return to sport.
During training for Invictus 2023, she fell in love with wheelchair rugby and now proves herself as a competition beast. She is lining back up for wheelchair rugby at the Warrior Games, alongside athletics, archery, sitting volleyball and wheelchair basketball.
She finds these adaptive competitions liberating, meeting similar people from around the globe.
Spending hours alongside international competitors at last year’s Invictus Games, Ms Hooker struck up friendships that are continuing more than nine months after competition has ended. She’ll meet up with some of the American competitors from Invictus who have made their respective teams at the Warrior Games.
Her advice for the other Team Australia competitors who might be feeling nervous?
“Smile, just enjoy it,” she said.
“I guarantee you’ll line up next to that start line or you’ll marshal next to someone who will be feeling the exact same way. Say hi. The ice will be broken, you’ll have known someone who’s feeling the same way and you’ll just love it.
“You won’t remember coming home to ‘I could have pushed harder or I could have done that differently or why did I fall over’. You’ll remember the people you met.”
The Warrior Games are underway until June 30 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida.
