Farmer News
1 April, 2025
Paralympian shares her journey
DUNKELD Community Centre was the venue for the ‘Women in Wood Fibre, International Women’s Day Celebration.’
Master of Ceremonies for the event was ABC radio host and podcaster Kirsten Diprose and guest speaker was Paralympian Melissa Tapper.
Melissa Tappers’ journey to becoming a Paralympian is extraordinary.
Melissa’s right arm was injured during the birthing process; weighing a whopping 11 lb 2 oz, she became stuck.
The resulting trauma to her right shoulder left her with permanent injury and loss of use and today Melissa still wears a brace on her right hand and wrist.
When she was around four months old, Melissa’s parents noticed a lack of movement in her arm and took her to see a specialist in Melbourne.
She was diagnosed with Brachial Plexis (the nerves in her right shoulder were torn).
Melissa underwent surgery to remove nerves from the back of each calf muscle which were then attached into the injured shoulder.
The surgery enabled Melissa to partially lift her right shoulder, but she remains with little finger movement and no wrist movement in her right hand.
Speaking at the International Women’s Day celebration, Melissa said she quickly learnt to use her left hand better, and found solutions for doing normally two-handed jobs with only one hand.
It became obvious to Melissa that if she wanted to do what the other kids were doing, she needed to work it out and practice.
This attitude to approaching challenges became a super power for Melissa.
She played most sports at school and was grateful to Mr Fitzpatrick, her sports teacher, who showed her great encouragement.
“I remember one lunch-time I picked up a paddle and had a go at table tennis; that led me to the local table tennis association,” Melissa said.
“It is a one hand dominant sport which suited me, and then I found out that table tennis can be played at an Olympic Games which excited me.
“And after discovering it could be played outside Hamilton, my parents took me to Ballarat where I won the under 12 state championship.
“That win really gave me the bug. Playing table tennis was the first thing I thought about when I woke up and the last thing before I went to sleep.”
At 15, Melissa moved in with her sister in Melbourne to attend school and access more training.
This is where her Olympic dream kicked in.
“I tried two Olympic qualifying tournaments and missed out,” Melissa said.
“It wasn’t until I was 19 that I was approached by the Paralympic committee. Initially I was hesitant to join because I had never considered myself as someone with a disability.”
However, Melissa headed to Jordan soon afterwards where she competed in a 5000-seat stadium with table tennis tables at its centre.
From there Melissa travelled overseas and competed in tournaments to elevate her world ranking to enable her to compete at the Paralympics.
In 2012 she qualified for the London Paralympic games and reached the quarter finals on debut.
This was Australia’s best performance in the sport in 28 years.
Melissa was the first athlete with a disability to qualify for the able-bodied Olympics when she was selected to represent Australia at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
In Rio in 2016 Melissa became the first athlete to compete at both the Olympics and Paralympics.
In 2020 she won silver in Tokyo and four years later competed in Paris.
Melissa finished her career with a silver Paralympic medal, gold and bronze Commonwealth medals, as well as two world championship bronze medals to her name.