Player's Own Voice podcast: Para swimmer Tammy Cunnington shares life lessons

Tammy Cunnington has made the most of a roller coaster experience in Para sport.

As the child of an active Red Deer, Alta., family, she just barely survived a freak accident at an airshow in 1982. By the time she rehabbed sufficiently to get back into sport, at 8 or 9 years of age, wheelchair basketball became her passion.

She was a big part of successful national teams, but by the time Cunnington was 19 the team culture drove her away — bullying, being othered — it added up to no fun.

The more we learn about the ingredients that need to work together to make safe sport happen, the more we understand how easily potentially great sporting careers can be derailed.

Still, almost ten years after retiring from competitive wheelchair basketball, Cunnington felt the need to get back into stronger shape.

Trips to the local gym led to her going hard at all three disciplines of triathlon, and even though she didn't really love time in the pool, great coaching and her own determination eventually made her a Paralympic swimming powerhouse.

Where did Cunnington find the drive to excel again, since swimming itself wasn't really her thing? In part, that was about being older than the average athlete.

She knew that her age was working against her, so she trained with added intensity. And as every successful athlete will tell you: there's no substitute for hard work.

Looking back on the competitive years (Cunnington retired after the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics) she realized that part of her enduring success also came from not being relentlessly upbeat. When she encounters setbacks, she gives herself permission to be bummed out for awhile, take stock, and carry on.

The flipside of that pragmatism is that she has also learned to leverage the