3 minute read

Para-archer Ameera Lee has taken a challenging road to Paris but one she has fully embraced as she targets Paralympic success.

Ameera Lee is a single mother, living with multiple sclerosis and fighting back from a bout of long COVID-19 that caused her to lose 20 per cent of her body weight.

So it would be fair to ask her why, at the age of 50, she is putting herself through the rigours of competing at her first Paralympic Games?

"That's just life isn't it? You've got to make the best with what you've got," the W2 para-archer told AAP.

"I've a child to raise, so what keeps me going? I'd say it's a love for life."

Lee is a mother to a teenage son Huthaifa, who won't be able to see his mother's Paralympic debut in the flesh due to his school commitments.

Lee's participation at a parent-child archery taster session in 2016 sparked her curiosity and filled the void left by taekwondo and capoeira, two of her loves before her MS diagnosis in 2012.

"Now I look back at it, patterns are a part of taekwondo and I wasn't able to remember a 10 step pattern in my mind," she said.

"I would get confused all the time and once I got diagnosed with MS, I could see why."

More than 33,000 Australians live with MS, an autoimmune disease which impacts the nervous system.

Lee first realised she needed to seek medical advice when she felt as if she was drooling and the right side of her body was numb.

While competing in a wheelchair gives her stability, the one thing which can disrupt Lee's accuracy with a bow is the heat.

"I can't control my body temperature," she said.

"When I was in Thailand my face went really red and my coaches had to do a quick dash for slurpees to cool me down, so I like to make sure I have an ice pack nearby."

As well as dealing with a condition that gives her a mix of good and bad days, Lee has also had to fight back from dropping 10kg as a result of COVID-19.

"It went on for about six months… and I dropped to about 40kg, I struggled to eat," she said.

"I couldn't determine if it was the MS or COVID-19 symptoms, but it got to a stage where it was ridiculous - I couldn't even draw my bow.

"I was fortunate enough to win Australia a spot (at the Paralympics) at last year's world championships in the Czech Republic and I knew I wasn't at my strongest.

"It's just a case of giving my all."