Injured Amelia gets back to competition

Marlborough Express

STILL CLIMBING: Amelia Peter before the 200m heats in Blenheim this week on her return from serious injuries suffered in a climbing-wall fall.

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One of the top of the south's promising young athletes completed a remarkable return from injury at Wednesday's Tasman secondary school athletics championships in Blenheim.

Amelia Peter suffered life-changing injuries when she fell from an eight-metre-high climbing wall operated by Olympic gold medal-winning kayaker Ian Ferguson's company, Ferg's Rock-n-Kayak, in December 2008.

She was on a St Mary's School trip to Wellington.

Amelia was left with two compacted vertebrae, a cracked pelvis and a fracture to the talus, the pivot of the ankle.

Days before her accident, she won the 100m, 200m, high jump and long jump titles in her age group at the Marlborough primary schools athletics championships.

Following the fall, Amelia was told she would be out of her favourite sports – athletics and netball – for at least two years.

This week, the 14-year-old year 10 student – who this year started boarding at Nelson College for Girls – proved the doctors wrong.

Just over a year after the accident, she competed in the 200m and 400m, qualifying for the final in each and finishing third in the 400m. However, even those efforts weren't up to Amelia's high standards.

"I'm not going too well. I'm pretty slow," she said. "I just wanted to get back as soon as I could. It [her foot] hurts quite a bit still."

Swelling and pain in her foot eventually forced Amelia to sit out the 200m final.

Despite her rush to return to the track Amelia doubted athletics would be in her future and instead would focus on rowing, a sport that was easier on her still-healing body.

Amelia's older sisters Alex and Charlotte are both rowers with Charlotte narrowly missing out on one of the coxswain positions in the New Zealand squad.

In February, Ferg's Rock-n-Kayak pleaded guilty to failing to take all practicable steps to prevent a fall from a height and was ordered to pay $50,000 in fines and $17,000 in reparation to Amelia.

- © Fairfax NZ News