How Ella Sabljak shifted from a Glider to a Steeler

Paralympians are not born, they’re made. It’s about their attitude – not just about natural talent. How coaches see drive, passion and potential.

Based on the Gold Coast, Ella Sabljak is a teacher and Para Sport educator, a wife, beach goer and a dog lover. She played Wheelchair Basketball at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics. In 2022, following a Silver medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Ella changed sports and is now firmly embedded in the Australian Wheelchair Rugby team, the Steelers.

Impressed? That’s not the half of it. The work she does for Para athletes and community engagement is also impressive. Ella shared her story and aspirations for the Olympic and Paralympic Games Brisbane 2032. Here we go.

The Early Years

Ella was born in Melbourne. She grew up with her sporty family in Yarraville, with her mum, elder sister both competing nationally in Taekwondo. More recently, Ella's younger brother represented Australia in Taekwondo at a junior level.

“Life with my family in Melbourne was pretty regular. I loved playing games at home with my sisters. I didn’t really get into sport at school as it wasn’t adaptive, so I wasn’t able to truly participate,” Ella said.

“I was introduced to Wheelchair Basketball initially when I was in Grade 2. It was a lot for my Mum to travel to the other side of town, so we put Para sport on hold for a while.

When Ella was fifteen, she was invited to the Geelong Para Athletics Club to give Wheelchair Racing a go.

“I was training with Paralympians like Sam McIntosh, Jemima Moore and Richard Colman.

Ella realised quickly that she wasn’t made for individual sports and sprinting for sprinting’s sake, so luckily someone in the club suggested, “What about wheelchair basketball?”

“That moment changed my life. I instantly loved the game, even though I couldn’t hit the net and had no idea of the rules.

Para Sport Journey

Initially participating in local competitions, Ella was then selected in the Victorian Wheelchair Basketball team in 2011 and her skills and confidence grew. Her first national selection followed in the same year, where Ella played in the first Under 25 Women’s Wheelchair Basketball World Championship in Canada. This pathway competition was a huge step in Ella’s Para sport journey.

“If it wasn’t for (the Under 25 Women’s Wheelchair Basketball World Championship), being able to see what was achievable and what I could do, I probably would have just kept playing socially.

Gliding to the Games

Ella watched on in Rio, as the Gliders didn’t qualify for the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games. She was the head of cheer for partner, Matt McShane and the competitive Rollers squad.

“Being on the other side of the game was interesting. Usually I’m in the thick of it on the court. But to be a spectator and see the Games from a fan’s point of view was also really special.

“In one of the sessions before the Rollers game, I watched some of the women’s game and remember thinking, “We should have been there.”

“It just made that desire to want to come back and be better, even stronger.

After Rio, the Gliders did the work and qualified for the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

“The lead-up to Tokyo, the games in the build-up were so close. We wanted to show that we deserved to be there. And then the pandemic came along, and we didn’t know what was going to happen.

“Even on the plane over to Tokyo in 2021, we weren’t sure if we’d land or if we’d be going back home. Thankfully, we made it.

“{Tokyo} was a different Games. No spectators, no family. We had many restrictions put on us as a team, especially as the Australian Paralympic team were quite vulnerable in terms of respiratory health. We had to make sure our team was safe first.

“We were missing the buzz and excitement you expect at the Paralympic Games, so we created it ourselves. We really got around everybody and our whole Australian Paralympic team. We had swimmers that would come back to watch our competition. They would yell out “Coo-eee” calls and bring our spirits up.

The viewership of the Tokyo Paralympic Games broadcast and the support from home was massive.

“We got heaps of messages of support from family and friends from Australia. Even strangers thanked us in the street back home for what we did during the Paralympic Games, because everyone was stuck at home. So we unintentionally bought the nation together, through the common goal of Para sport.

Australian Steelers gain

In 2022, Ella was preparing for the Gliders’ first Wheelchair Basketball 3 x 3 competition at the Commonwealth Games, and to play alongside the full Basketball Australia family including the Opals, Boomers and Rollers.

In the lead-up, Ella was contacted by Wheelchair Rugby organisers to see if she had plans after the Commonwealth Games, and whether she’d consider a code change.

“I shut that down. I was like, no, not for me,” Ella reminisces.

Luckily for Ella and the Steelers, the change to Wheelchair Rugby seemed like it was always on the cards and Ella jumped in someone else’s chair at the National Wheelchair Rugby Championships, held on the Gold Coast.

“It took me a while to figure out how complex rugby was. But I think once you know how to move in the space, understand ball movements and have an awareness on the court, you can transfer those skills to Wheelchair Rugby.

Soon Ella had finished her last Wheelchair Basketball game for the Gliders, and was on a plane over to Italy for her first Wheelchair Rugby International Tournament in Italy.

“I thought basketball and sport was over for me. When the idea of Wheelchair Rugby came up, I was really excited for a new challenge and thought, “Why not?”.

“I quickly embedded myself onto the {Aussie Steelers} team. We won the World Championships in 2022 year in Denmark, and then we won the World Cup in Paris in 2023. Hopefully we’ll be winning a gold medal this year in Paris at the Paralympic Games.

The Steelers took the long road to qualify for the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games. They missed out on an early qualification spot and took things to the wire when they competed in New Zealand in March 2024.

“As a team, we’ve set ourselves a lot of goals. Not only did we want to qualify for the Games, but we wanted to win that tournament and we wanted to do it as a team, not relying on our core three or four players.

“We wanted to make sure that the world knew that we were here to were play.

“When we were coming up against Canada in the gold medal match, it was neck and neck. I was so confident in our team that we were going to get the job done, because we'd done all the work. We knew what we had to do.

“It seemed like a little bit of a fight, but our coaching staff and our team had the confidence in our teams to get that job done.

The Aussie Steelers took the match in extra time – and qualified for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

Changing the Narrative of Para Sport

In an Olympic and Paralympic year, we expect to see more brands use sport messaging in campaigns, typically delivered with athlete ambassadors.

One positive change Para athletes are looking for is respect and awareness around elite Para athletes and the sacrifices they make to compete. As an example, Ella is taking leave from her career to put everything into her training and recovery.

“I think a lot of the time, content with Para athletes has been really positive and inspirational,” Ella said.

“If you have athletes with a disability competing at a high level and the consumer is watching that, they're like, well, my life's not that bad. We've really wanted to change that narrative into, we are high performing athletes, disability or no disability, and we're here to compete and we're not here to be your inspiration. We're here to want to be our best. And you know what? If that inspires somebody, great.

The good news is that the narrative is changing.

Brands are asking Para athletes how they’d like to be represented. They’re co-designing messages with people with lived experience to get the tone right and dip below the surface.

In a campaign to mark 100 days from the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, the International Paralympic Committee delivered a campaign that opened with a fairytale utopia vibe, where animated characters linked arms and skipped along to a warm Paul McCartney track. Halfway through the video, the music changes and you feel a marked change. It’s gritty vision of real Para athletes, showing that Para athletes aren’t here to play games.

“I almost kept scrolling, and I'm so glad I didn't because it showed the fierceness of Paralympic athletes. It gave me goosebumps to watch.

“It's not this utopia world where everybody gets along or the friendship games. It's so much more than that. We're here to win."

Looking ahead to Brisbane 2032

Seeing more people with disability represented in the media is one way to create lasting change, as we all know, ‘If you see it, you can be it’.

“I never had anybody to look up to a sport like any sporting stars. I remember doing an assignment on Louise Savage when I was young, but she was the only one. There was nobody else out there that I could see myself in,” Ella said.

“I want to create an environment where no other young girl growing up with a disability will ever not see themselves in someone. And to be able to see themselves achieving great things, not only in sport, but in life.

“Para sport has provided me so much more than just sport. I've got a career, I've got a job, and a wonderful family.

One of the biggest benefits of hosting the Paralympic Games is the potential to bring societal changes around disability and inclusion.

“We want more people with a disability employed. I think the Games are going to provide the opportunity for people to think and see that they can achieve that.

“Are we going to have more people with disability employed? Are we going to see young women coaching sports and people with a disability on boards? Are we going to see people being able to access courts because they're in wheelchairs?