Christine Ingrid Wolf, OAM (born 3 March 1980) is an Australian

Paralympic The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaire ...

athlete born in Germany who competed for Germany and Australia mainly in category F42 long jump and T 42 100m events.

Early life

Wolf was born in Kirchheim unter Teck (near

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

) in southern Germany. She was diagnosed with leg cancer in the left leg at the age of 10 and had her leg amputated at the age of 15 after five years of unsuccessful

chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemotherap ...

and numerous infections. After her amputation, she was informed about the Paralympic Games and visited Atlanta for the 1996 Games. In 1997, she started running with a prosthetic leg.

Career

She trained for the Sydney Games but could not compete in her classification TF42 as there were no events scheduled. She competed for Germany in the

2004 Athens Paralympics ) , nations = 136 , athletes = 3,806 , events = 519 in 19 sports , opening = 17 September , closing = 28 September , opened_by = President Costis Stephanopoulos , cauldron = Georgios Toptsis , stadium = Olympic ...

, she won a silver medal in the women's long jump F42 event. After the Games, she was dissatisfied with her results and nearly left the sport. At the Games, she became friendly with Australian athletes and in February 2005 moved to Australia to train at the

Australian Institute of Sport The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) is a high performance sports training institution in Australia. The Institute's headquarters were opened in 1981 and are situated in the northern suburb of Bruce, Canberra. The AIS is a division of the ...

(AIS). She was offered a scholarship and was coached by

Irina Dvoskina Iryna Dvoskina (born 22 December 1958) is a Ukraine-born Australian athletics coach who works with Paralympic athletes. Biography Being an only child, she came to Australia in 2003 to be closer to her mother Fira (born 20 September 1934), who h ...

. When applying for Australian citizenship, she stated that "I didn’t want the Germans to get any credit for my improvements so I said I wanted to compete for Australia". The citizenship was approved just prior to the Games. She competed at the

2008 Beijing Paralympics The 2008 Summer Paralympic Games (), the 13th Summer Paralympic Games, took place in Beijing, China from September 6 to 17, 2008. As with the 2008 Summer Olympics, equestrian events were held in Hong Kong and sailing events in Qingdao. It was f ...

. There she won a gold medal in the women's long jump F42 event, for which she received a Medal of the Order of Australia, and a bronze medal in the women's 100m T42 event. After the Games, she left the AIS in Canberra as she wanted to live somewhere with white sand, sunshine and palm trees. She moved to

Cairns Cairns (, ) is a city in Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population in June 2019 was 153,952, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years. The city is the 5th-most-p ...

Far North Queensland Far North Queensland (FNQ) is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. Its largest city is Cairns and it is dominated geographically by Cape York Peninsula, which stretches north to the Torres Strait, and west to the Gulf C ...

and works as a personal trainer. She now plays wheelchair basketball.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolf, Christine 1980 births Living people Paralympic athletes for Australia Paralympic athletes for Germany Athletes (track and field) at the 2004 Summer Paralympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2008 Summer Paralympics Paralympic gold medalists for Australia Paralympic silver medalists for Germany Paralympic bronze medalists for Australia Medalists at the 2004 Summer Paralympics Medalists at the 2008 Summer Paralympics Amputee category Paralympic competitors German emigrants to Australia People from Kirchheim unter Teck Sportspeople from Stuttgart (region) Australian amputees German expatriate sportspeople in Australia Australian expatriate sportspeople in Germany German amputees Recipients of the Medal of the Order of Australia Australian Institute of Sport Paralympic track and field athletes Paralympic medalists in athletics (track and field) Australian female sprinters Australian female long jumpers German female sprinters German female long jumpers 20th-century Australian women 21st-century Australian women