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NOT too many teenagers are presented with the opportunity to head overseas to a Paralympic Games.
But that's exactly the scenario facing Port Macquarie's Paige Leonhardt.
It's been a long road for the 16-year-old who suffered a brain injury in 2006 after a car accident.
Originally, Paige was earmarked for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics but her progress has been such that she was deemed to be good enough to compete in Rio 2016.
It will be her first time outside of Australia and while she admits to being nervous, she's also excited.
"I'm really looking forward to the whole overseas experience and being able to go and explore the town outside of when we're competing," she said.
I'll get to experience all the emotions once I'm inside the arena because I've seen pictures and it looks really big, but I need to make sure I'm focused once I'm out there.
- PAIGE LEONHARDT
She said she was also excited about being able to spend some more time getting to know her teammates outside of just for a brief period in a hotel room.
Father, Soren, said it would be good for his daughter to go overseas and experience what it would be like to be a professional athlete.
"It'll give her a bit more of an understanding what is required to be an elite athlete, the demands that are placed on them, the elite competition that she'll face and what hard work is required to stay at the top," he said.
"The hard work starts now; although it was hard to get to where she is, she's got to stay there and because it's the Paralympics doesn't mean it's any easier at all."
He attributed coach Jeremy Wardrop for playing an integral part of getting Paige to where she needed to be.
"He has been instrumental in getting her to where she is because she's always had the natural ability, but it had to be fine tuned," he said.
"He changed her attitude with how she approached races and now she's benefiting.
"She was always in contention to go to Tokyo 2020, but then she was one of five who were identified as possibilities to go to Rio which was fantastic."
It's going to be a busy lead-up to the Paralympics for the talented teenager.
Early in July 3 she headed to the Brisbane grand prix, before heading off to Cairns for a week-long training camp. Then it was Auburn, Alabama on August 22 before the team flies direct to Rio on September 1.
The days of competition are between September 8 and 17 before they fly home on September 22.
Paige is already planning what her next goals will be.
"After the Paralympics I'll aim for the Commonwealth Games in 2018 and then Tokyo in 2020," she said.
Ryley Batt knows what Paige Leonhardt can expect at her first Paralympic Games
Ryley Batt remembers his first Paralympic Games experience.
He had only just turned 15 and had to cope with “sneaky journalists asking questions in places they knew they shouldn’t have been in.”
At the time he was the youngest Australian to represent his country at an Olympic Games.
That piece of history has since been rewritten, but he knows what challenges 15-year-old Paige Leonhardt will face as she prepares to head to her first Paralympic Games.
“I think for Paige the most important thing is to enjoy the fact you’re representing your country,” Batt, who has four Paralympics’ worth of experience to draw on, said.
“It will be en eye-opening experience for her, but at the same time it’ll be hectic and amazing all at the same time.”
He conceded the added support from family and friends at home could also turn into a burden.
“Sometimes having that support can be a bad thing because it can then be a case of having too much pressure placed on you,” he said.
“It’s just important to enjoy the experience and not get too wrapped up in it.”
Batt will take the teenager under his wing where possible in and around the village while they’re overseas.
“I’d love to catch up with her because I know it’s important to get away and meet up with other athletes,” he said.
“It just breaks everything up.”
Leonhardt’s first event will be the 100-metre breaststroke which will prevent her from attending the opening ceremony.
The teenager did not see it as a bad thing.
“I wanted to go to the opening ceremony, but now I look at it, it will probably be even more special to be at the closing ceremony especially if I have a couple of medals hanging around my neck,” she said.
She had set the goal of not finishing any lower than fourth in her pet event.
“If I can finish third and get on the podium that would be great, but I don’t want to go backwards,” she said.
“I want to finish fourth at worst.”