Keira Warwick couldn’t land a shot. The 20-year-old was trying Para shooting for the very first time, and nothing was finding the target. Then help arrived from the best person in the building: the woman whose name is on the Cup.
Few people know a target better. Across 12 Paralympic Games, Libby Kosmala OAM PLY won 13 medals for Australia, nine of them gold. At the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra, she passed on what she knows to Warwick and her fellow VIS Para Sport Unit athletes in Team South.
“It was so amazing. I got so many great tips,” Warwick said.
“I was struggling at first to actually get a shot, but then with her help, I actually got one, so that was pretty cool to experience.”
As she headed off to her next sport, a starstruck Warwick was still taking it all in.
“Did that actually happen?” she said.
Shooting is new territory for Warwick, who has cerebral palsy affecting her right hand and the right side of her body.
Kosmala’s interest didn’t stop at the range. Over lunch, she sat down with Warwick and her Team South teammates to hear about their journeys and interests.
Kiera Warwick and Libby Kosmala with members of Team South at lunch.
It was the kind of company Kosmala once had to go looking for. At the opening ceremony, the South Australian told the 70 athletes she grew up knowing almost nobody else with disability, until she sought out a small group of boys playing wheelchair basketball in Adelaide.
“I decided I wanted to meet people like me,” Kosmala said.
More than half a century later, Warwick has found that company in Canberra.
“It’s been great to meet new people, hang out with old friends and just try out new things,” she said.
Warwick is one of 70 athletes aged 13 to 32 competing across 12 sports at the four-day Cup, all identified through Para Sport Units set up nationwide under the Australian Government-funded Para Uplift.
For Kosmala, seeing them all together is proof of how far Para sport has come.
“The opportunities now are so much greater than they were when I was a young person,” she said.
“I think it’s unbelievable how much it’s changed, and I’m very excited about it.”
The Libby Kosmala Para Futures Cup concludes with the inaugural trophy presentation on Monday 5 October.
