For Commonwealth Medal winning Para cyclist Kane Perris, the journey to sporting glory has often been about overcoming setbacks and challenges on the path towards achieving his sporting goals rather than riding a smooth path to victory.
Born with Albinism and vision loss associated with the condition, Kane never considered that a career as a Para Athlete was a path that might be open to him.
Kane, who now works with the Western Australian Institute of Sport (WAIS) returned to EverAbility this week with his WAIS colleague, Claire Tucak, a trained classifier with Paralympics Australia.
The pair spoke with VisAbility team members about building greater awareness of Paralympic pathways for those with vision impairment and other disabilities and how our allied health teams help identify and encourage clients to find out if this might be a path for them.
A doubling in Federal funding for paralympic sport in 2024 provided better classification opportunities, access to fit-for-purpose training environments, and specialised coaching and performance support for paralympic athletes across Australia helping reduce barriers for those entering the sport.
Claire and Kane spoke with employees, both in person and online, about the importance of classification for fair competition, rules around eligibility and specifically eligibility criteria for vision impaired athletes and aspiring athletes.
For allied health professionals, the presentation provided awareness about eligibility, what the pathway might look like and step by step guides for them to help individuals to begin or continue their para sport journey.
Kane’s own journey came about quite by accident following a phone call from a WAIS staff member to VisAbility, where he was working at the time as part of the Exercise Physiology team.
As Kane told the audience, including former VisAbility colleagues, it was definitely not something he had considered until after hanging up the phone.
“I was working at VisAbility and we had a call from someone at WAIS about identifying potential clients who may be suitable for a paralympic pathway,” he explained.
Kane said he took down the details and then thought ‘maybe I could do that’ and called them back 20 minutes later. And the rest, as they say, is history.
That call in 2020 kick started Kane’s cycling journey through a Western Australian Institute of Sport talent identification program and led to his selection to train for a chance at competing at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
Unfortunately, a serious injury meant that selection wasn’t possible for Tokyo, sidelining him for over ten months, completing rehab in 2021. This didn’t stop Kane, who says those challenges are what has allowed him to truly unlock his full potential.
Kane rides in tandem with his sighted pilot, Luke Zaccaria, and have been a team since Kane came into the sport in 2020 competing in the 1km time trial, the sprint, and the tandem team sprint.
He competed in the 2024 Para National Championships in Melbourne with a swag of personal bests, national titles, a national record in the team sprint and a World Championship and Paralympic qualifying time in the 1km time trial and from there he was selected for his first Australian Cycling Team, travelling to Brazil for the 2024 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships.
Kane and pilot Luke experienced a career highlight, returning triumphant with a bronze model (featuring Braille) in the Men’s Tandem B 1000m Time Trial final at the Commonwealth Games in Glascow!
You can view the presentation here and find out more at www.paralympic.org.au/the-start-line/