- Two of Us
- National
- Good Weekend
‘It’s borderline crazy’: The feat that leaves this coach in awe of his athlete wife
By Jane Cadzow
German-born Vanessa Low, 33, will compete for Australia in the long jump at the Paralympic Games in Paris. Her husband and coach, Scott Reardon, 34, a former Paralympic gold-medal sprinter, will be there with their two-year-old son, Matteo.
Scott Reardon, Vanessa Low and their two-year-old, Matteo: “Becoming parents was a humbling experience, making us realise that we weren’t invincible,” Vanessa says. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Scott: We both started competing in para-sport in 2009. I had my eye on Vanessa from the beginning – she’s a very good-looking girl – but we didn’t have a conversation until 2013, when we were both in London at an athletics meet. Our medal ceremonies were around the same time and we just started chatting. It was obvious straight away that there was some kind of connection there.
I lost my leg in an accident on my family’s farm at Temora [in southern NSW] when I was 12. Got my shoelace caught in a power take-off shaft on a post-hole digger. I think the fact that Vanessa and I both experienced trauma when we were young helped bring us together. There was mutual understanding.
After London, we stayed in touch. Vanessa had just moved from Germany to the US to train and I was living in Canberra. A lot of FaceTime calls. Things kind of blossomed when we both competed in Germany in 2014. Two years later, Vanessa came to Australia and she’s been here ever since. We went from a long-distance relationship to living together, training together, doing everything together. We had a common goal – to be the best in the world – and we supported each other as much as we could.
‘I can’t get my head around the skill and the sheer courage that you need to run with no legs.’
Scott Reardon
The same day I announced my retirement in 2021, we found out Vanessa was pregnant. I’m now her coach; I care for Matteo when Vanessa is away competing or training. I love being able to give her that support and seeing her thrive.
I know what it’s like to run with one leg: pretty scary at times. I can’t get my head around the skill and the sheer courage that you need to run with no legs. Not only no feet but, crucially, no knees. To do that at absolutely top speed and then to take off and jump close to 5.5 metres, which is what Vanessa does – it’s borderline crazy. But it makes me really proud that she’s able to do that. And when she’s getting it right, it’s magical to watch.
The long jump is incredibly challenging for a double amputee because it requires so much co-ordination. Vanessa does 22 steps in her run-up before take-off. If each of those steps is just one centimetre too long, she winds up about 20 centimetres over the board and it’s a foul. If each step is just one centimetre too short, she jumps from about 20 centimetres behind the board and she doesn’t get the distance. So even that skill – to be able to run up on prosthetic legs and take off from the same mark every time … I just don’t know how she does it.
Matteo and I will be there when she competes in Paris, which will be pretty special. The long-jump event is a rollercoaster of emotions: right up until the last jump, she can win or lose. When she won gold at the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021, I was a blubbering mess. If she jumps as far as we know she can, she’ll come home from Paris with a gold medal. But whether she walks away with gold or with nothing, I’m still going to love her. Matteo is still going to love her, too. Nothing’s going to change.
Vanessa: I had three coaches before Scott and they all had an ocean of knowledge, but none of them knew me as a person as well as he does. He truly understands me, and what it takes to support me.
We both had our accidents early in life – I was 15 when I fell from a railway platform into the path of a train and lost both my legs – and as a result, we both grew up really quickly. Sometimes we found it quite hard to connect with people our age. On the plus side, experiencing that hardship early probably brought out aspects of our characters that we otherwise wouldn’t have discovered until later in our lives, qualities that made us the athletes we are. We have both refused to let ourselves be defined by what happened to us. We’ve taken charge of our lives and defined ourselves by the way we’ve responded to the cards we were dealt.
Scott is just the kindest person. If you enter his world, you always feel like you’re welcome and supported and loved. I guess that’s what really made me fall for him. When we first started dating, he used to ask me why I picked him. I would joke that I knew he was going to be the best dad, and also that he was going to pass on his amazing eyelashes to our baby. I was right on both counts.
I had a difficult pregnancy. I was quite sick for most of it, but the most challenging aspect was that, towards the end, I couldn’t fit into my prosthetic legs any more. I really struggled with mobility.
‘A lot of people don’t understand that although I can run 100 metres in under 15 seconds ... I’m still quite reliant on my wheelchair.’
Vanessa Low
Everything that was a problem when I first lost my legs all of a sudden became a problem again. I was reliant on a wheelchair and reliant on other people. I had kind of forgotten how that felt because I’d been so active and independent for so long.
We are so grateful to have Matteo. He is the sweetest little thing. He was an unsettled baby, though – essentially, he screamed for the first six months of his life. The only way, really, to keep him from screaming was walking laps around the kitchen island at 2am. I think a lot of mums understand how difficult sleep deprivation can be, but add to that the disability layer and it was definitely challenging. Scott was also struggling. Becoming parents was a humbling experience, making us realise that we weren’t invincible.
I view disability as a shadow that is always with me. A lot of people don’t understand that although I can run 100 metres in under 15 seconds and jump five-and-a-half metres, that’s only one side of my life. In the mornings and evenings, I’m still quite reliant on my wheelchair.
I am a fierce competitor: I wouldn’t still be a professional athlete if I didn’t want to be the best. I truly do want to be on the top of the podium. But I think you learn after winning your first gold medal that it doesn’t matter as much as you thought it did. It doesn’t really change anything. In Paris, the important thing will be having Scott and Matteo with me, knowing we have given our all to be there.
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