Rosemary Eames

Eames was raised in the Sydney suburb of Kingsgrove. At the age of five, she fell off a slide and damaged a bone in her left wrist while holidaying in Batemans Bay. Her left arm was plastered, but it developed gas gangrene and had to be amputated a few weeks later.[1][2] After her recovery, she resumed gymnastics due to the encouragement of her parents, and took up jazz ballet, impressing the local community so much that she received a Canterbury Council Centenary Medal for Achievement.[1]

When she began swimming soon after the accident, she was only taught sidestroke because her swimming teachers thought that it was the only stroke that could be performed by a person with one arm. However, she met a swimming teacher with one arm in North Ryde who showed her how to swim the other strokes by example.[2] She entered school competitions with her able-bodied peers, then progressed to district competitions, where she was constantly disqualified from breaststroke and butterfly races because she did not finish with two hands.[2] In 1985, at the age of 20, she was working as an accounting machine operator for the New South Wales state government.[2] She played an active role in the New South Wales Amputee Sports Association, often serving as their spokesperson.[1] She married Paul Elliott in 1988 and had three children with him, Chloe, Nathan and Alexa; the family moved to Brisbane in 1999, where Eames worked at Qantas.[1] She died in a car accident in 2002 at the age of 36.[1]

Eames began competitive swimming at the age of 14.[1] At the 1982 FESPIC Games, she won four gold medals and broke four world records.[1] At the 1984 New York/Stoke Mandeville Paralympics, she won two gold medals, one of which was in the Women's 100 m Breaststroke A6 event, and four silver medals in the Women's 100 m Backstroke A6, Women's 100 m Butterfly A6, Women's 100 m Freestyle A6 and Women's 200 m Individual Medley A6 events; she broke two world and Paralympic records at the games.[1][2][3] At the 1985 Canadian National Games for the Physically Disabled, she won gold medals in the 100 m freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly, and the 200 m individual medley; she broke world records in the freestyle, backstroke, and breaststroke events.[2] She won five gold medals and broke two world records at the 1986 FESPIC Games.[1]

In total, she broke more than 20 world records and 2 Paralympic records in her career.[2] She won 10 gold medals and 4 silver medals in international events.[1]

In 1986, Eames received the Portfolio Magazine Independent Woman of the Year Award for Sport for her work with the New South Wales Amputee Sports Association.[1] She was made a life member of the Hurstville Amateur Swimming Club,[1] and in 2000, she received an Australian Sports Medal.[4]