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Who knew that Emma Wiggs, MBE, 3x Paralympic Paracanoe Champion, 5x Paralympic Medalilst, 12x Paracanoe World Champion & 4x Paralympian is just like the rest of us. Not in a kayak, obviously. But in a supermarket, absolutely.
“I’m ashamed to tell you that I leave the supermarket every single time without my full list because I don’t want to ask someone to help me repeatedly - to reach things for me because I’m in a wheelchair. Why? People love to help but we’re so bad at asking. I’ll honestly choose to leave rather than ask. Or if I’ve asked one person to reach one thing, that’s it. That’s my limit. And they always say: ‘Yes of course, anything else I can get for you?’ And I say: ‘No, no, no that’s fine…’ and it isn’t fine. I’m going home with half the shopping.
“I’ve had to work with a psychologist to stop saying ‘sorry’. “Sorry to bother you, sorry could you possibly…..’ He said: ‘You’ve got to stop that. Say thank you. Please could you reach this for me. Thank you. Leave it at that!’ I don’t think it’s just people with a disability. As a nation we’re inherently bad at asking for help. It’s hard to be cared for and have to ask for help. We see it as weakness but it should probably be a strength.
“People who are carers would flourish with a bit of care themselves. We’ve got to shine a light on the kindness and hopefully breed more kindness. That’s why the Stepping Out Walks are so important. It gives people a connection to one another and a chance to be a mutual support.
“I’ve not had to care for anyone in the health sense but I’ve been the recipient of care. I’ve experienced how vital and imperative it is. Illness changed my life. I was on a gap year in Australia when I was a teenager and caught a virus which left me a bit damaged. I was flown home and my mum cared for me even though she had a full-time job as a physiotherapist running a department of 70 people in the NHS.
I wasn’t a good patient. Looking after me was pretty tough for her. Bleak at certain points. Doctors laughed when I said my main goal was to get to uni and become a PE teacher. ‘A PE teacher in a wheelchair? You need to understand you’ll have to be looked after for the rest of your life.’
“I was absolutely defiant this wasn’t the case. Admirable, unrealistic, destructive. The fight must have been quite hard on my family. It became my battle and my obsession when living life as a person with a disability is tough enough anyway.
“But I became a PE teacher. The kids completely accepted me. It’s real credit to the Paralympic movement. They had access to another view of so-called disability. They see through wheelchairs and prosthetics. They’re just interested in what you do. They don’t pity you.”
There is absolutely nothing pitiful about Emma. She radiates energy and determination with the force of a solar power station. This goes some way to explaining her stellar Paralympic career from London 2012 to Paris 2024, where are at the age of 44 she won gold and silver despite some traumatic problems along the way. Which brings us to Brendan……a carer, in his way, if ever there was one.
“My relationship with my former coach had imploded after the Tokyo Paralympics. It festered on for about two years. Then I switched coaches to work with Brendan Purcell, an Aussie and just an incredible man. I’m so grateful to him for making me fall in love with the sport again. But I found out six months before the Games that I had a shoulder injury that requires surgery. I’d overtrained. The demands of elite sport are brutal. I’d beasted myself.
“That’s why I was so emotional on the podium when I got my gold medial. I’m a bit of a crier on podiums but this was another level of ugly crying. I’d caught a glimpse of my family on the big screen - and I was just sobbing. To win a gold and silver in Paris - it was emotional relief as much as anything…
“Brendan had been fundamental in giving me belief that I could do things differently and still get to a great performance at the age of 44. It’s why I was sad when he told me he was going back to Australia before the Games. But at least we still had 80 days together. So I thought: Right I’m going rinse you for everything I could possibly learn and wrote it all down in what I call my “Book of Brendan”. I carry it everywhere with me and now I’ve got page after page of incredible insight.”
Like what? “Well, I tend to be self-critical, destructively so. He’d see me do it and say: ‘Oh Wiggsy, give yerself an uppercut!’ which made me laugh and snapped me out of it. I can’t tell you many of his phrases because there’s too many F-words in them. But without a medical need, Brendan has cared for me. We all need to be champions for each other at certain moments. He did that in his very Aussie way and it moved mountains.”
Our huge thanks to Emma Wiggs, para-athlete, champion, motivational speaker and terrible supermarket shopper for supporting The Big Step Out 2024 and dedicating so many of her Paralympic training sessions this summer to our grand total of 6.2 million steps (or in her case paddles) to raise the profile of carers & those they care for.
Paris photos courtesy of Garry Bowden