Victorian Calisthenics exponent Sonia Chapple is headed to her first Pan Pacific Masters Games on the Gold Coast (4-13 November 2022) thankful she’s not the founding member of a very exclusive club.
“I had a liver transplant 10 years ago, a pancreas transplant six and a half years ago and there was talk at one stage that I might need a kidney transplant,” Sonia said.
“But I didn’t want the dubious honour of being the first triple transplant recipient to compete in Masters competition,” she laughed.
Sonia, who will celebrate her 46th birthday on the day she arrives on the Gold Coast, will compete alongside 22 members of the Kingston Gold Masters Calisthenics from Clayton Victoria under the watchful eye of coaches Donna Gabriel and Ronice Ritter.
The Kingston Gold Masters compete in up to four competitions a year, including the Pan Pacific Masters Games.
And it’s fair to say few of her teammates and fellow competitors can thank as many lucky stars for making it to the stage at the Star, Gold Coast.
“This is my first Pan Pacs after 10 years of trying to get to the Gold Coast for them,” Sonia said.
“It’s been a bit longer than I had hoped after my transplants and the disappointment of the Covid cancellation in 2020, but I am so looking forward to it and we’re all raring to go this time,” she said.
And a long and bumpy road it’s been since she waited 12 years to get on the transplant list and suffered a bout of meningococcal along the way for good measure.
“‘I had to take a few years off at the end of 2005 as my health was rapidly declining,” Sonia said.
“I came back to Cali’ in 2011 and competed with Kingston Gold Masters in their inaugural year as a Masters team, but it was only when I fell flat on my face trying to practise a leap at the beginning of 2012 that I knew my body would no longer let me compete.
“I had severe muscle wastage and an abnormal build-up of fluid in my abdomen [ascites] and I looked like a beached whale due to end stage liver failure.
“Thankfully it was a blessing in disguise as I was put on the transplant waiting list a few months later and received my new liver later that year, for which I’m truly grateful to my donor and her family for their gift.
“I came back again in 2016 but only lasted two classes before I got the call for my second transplant, for which I struggled both physically and mentally afterwards.
“I finally came back to the team in 2020 fitter than I’ve ever been, only for Covid to hit and then for me to sustain a neck injury in 2021, but I’m very stubborn and ended up competing the entire year,” she said.
“I had to have an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF), a type of neck surgery that involves removing damaged discs to relieve spinal cord or nerve root pressure.
“A big part of the procedure was removing the C4 and C5 vertebrae at the base of my neck and putting in an interbody spacer, which is also called a cage, where the vertebrae were removed,” she said disarmingly matter of factly.
It was Sonia’s stubborn streak that saw her discharge herself from hospital on more than one occasion to train for and take part in local calisthenics events.
And when she isn’t putting her body on the line, Sonia passes on her love of calisthenics by teaching children aged 2-7 years and a class of over 65s, with the oldest student a fit and supple 87 years of age.
And while she can’t wait for her maiden Pan Pacs experience, she is ruing the fact that she missed seeing the debut of DanceSport on the 2022 program.
“I was a Latin and Street Latin ballroom dancer before I got sick in 2005.
“If I had looked at the schedule more closely, I might have had time to grab myself a partner and hit the dancefloor as well,” she laughed.
The 2022 Pan Pacific Masters Games return after a four-year pandemic-induced break with 11 non-stop days of sport and entertainment and a new ‘Big Top’ Games Village at Kurrawa Park at Broadbeach.
People wanting more information on the Games can visit www.mastersgames.com.au
They are organised by Events Management Queensland and are proudly supported by the Queensland Government, through Tourism and Events Queensland, and features on the It’s Live! in Queensland events calendar.
