Steve Graham (born 23 January 1962) is a retired Australian Paralympic winter sport coach. He was head coach of Australia's Winter Paralympic team for the

1994 Winter Paralympics The 1994 Winter Paralympics ( no, Paralympiske vinterleker 1994; nn, Paralympiske vinterleikane 1994), the sixth Paralympic Winter Games, were held in Lillehammer, Norway, from 10 to 19 March 1994. These Games marked the second time the Para ...

2006 Winter Paralympics The 2006 Winter Paralympic Games ( it, Giochi paralimpici invernali del 2006), the ninth Paralympic Winter Games, took place in Turin, Italy from 10 to 19 March 2006. These were the first Winter Paralympic Games to be held in Italy. They were ...

2010 Winter Paralympics ) , nations = 44 , athletes = 506 , events = 64 in 5 sports , opening = 12 March , closing = 21 March , opened_by = Governor General Michaëlle Jean , cauldron = Zach Beaumont , stadium = BC Place , winter_pr ...

and

2014 Winter Paralympics The 2014 Winter Paralympics (russian: Зимние Паралимпийские игры 2014, Zimniye Paralimpiyskiye igry 2014), the 11th Paralympic Winter Games, and also more generally known as the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games, were a ...

. , after the Sochi winter Paralympics Graham ceased to be the current head coach of the

Australian Paralympic Committee Paralympics Australia (PA) previously called the Australian Paralympic Committee (APC) (1998–2019) is the National Paralympic Committee in Australia for the Paralympic Games movement. It oversees the preparation and management of Australian tea ...

's Winter Paralympic program.

Personal

Graham was born on 23 January 1962 in

Palm Beach, Queensland Palm Beach is a coastal suburb in the City of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. In the , Palm Beach had a population of 14,654 people. Geography Palm Beach is bounded to the north by Tallebudgera Creek, to the east by the Coral Sea, to the ...

. His hobbies include doing

yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-conscio ...

and going to the beach.

Coaching

Day 1 Lincoln Budge and Steve Graham Australia

Graham is a skiing coach for Paralympic athletes whose focus is coaching on sitting, standing and vision impaired skiers. His coaching philosophy involves athletes training hard every day as if the next day they would be competing in an event. He mentored and coached Michael Milton, Australia's first

Winter Paralympics The Winter Paralympic Games is an international multi-sport event where athletes with physical disabilities compete in snow and ice sports. The event includes athletes with mobility impairments, amputations, blindness, and cerebral palsy. The ...

medallist. Milton gave one of the gold medals he earned at the

2002 Winter Paralympics The 2002 Winter Paralympics, the eighth Paralympic Winter Games, were held in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, from March 7 to 16, 2002. A total of 416 athletes from 36 nations participated. They were the first Winter Paralympics in the Amer ...

to Graham. Graham also coached

Jessica Gallagher Jessica Gallagher (born 14 March 1986) is an Australian Paralympic alpine skier, track and field athlete, tandem cyclist and rower. She was Australia's second female Winter Paralympian, and the first Australian woman to win a medal at the Wi ...

, Australia's first female Winter Paralympic medallist, and Cameron Rahles Rahbula and

Toby Kane Toby Kane (born 30 December 1986) is an Australian Paralympian who won a bronze medal in the men's super G Standing at the 2006 Winter Paralympics in Torino and a bronze medal in the men's super G standing in his third Winter Paralympics at th ...

. He helped the Australian ski team finish sixth at the

IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships The World Para Alpine Skiing Championships, known before the 2017 edition as the IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships, along with the Winter Paralympic Games, are the most prestigious level of international competition in Paralympic alpine skiing. ...

in Korea in 2009, where two athletes that he coached individually, Cameron Rahles‐Rahbula and Shannon Dallas, finished in first place. Other athletes he has coached include Mitchell Gourley, who finished first in the giant slalom event at Australian National Skiing Championships. Graham was the assistant coach for the team at the

1992 Winter Paralympics The 1992 Winter Paralympics (french: Jeux paralympiques d'hiver de 1992) were the fifth Winter Paralympics. They were the first Winter Paralympics to be celebrated with the International Olympic Committee cooperation. They were also the first ...

. He then became head coach of Australia's Winter Paralympic team for the

and the

. In 2003, he was named the

’s Winter Paralympic Program head coach, and in 2010 signed a four-year deal to remain on in the position. , Graham is the current head coach of the

's Winter Paralympic program. According to an interview published on the

site, his immediate priority was to prepare athletes for the

, while at the same time working to insure the Australian winter sport program will be competitive for the

2018 Winter Paralympics ) , nations = 49 , athletes = 569 , events = 80 in 6 sports , opening = 9 March , closing = 18 March , opened_by = President Moon Jae-in , cauldron = Kim Eun-jungSeo Soon-seok , stadium = Pyeongchang Olymp ...

. Part of the effort involves having an athlete retention of seventy-five percent. Graham has spoken out against the classification system used by the International Paralympic Committee when it comes to classifying skiers. He felt the system was unfair. In an interview with Cerebral Palsy Australia, he said "We have three of the best 5 or 6 skiers in the world in the standing class and in the old system we would’ve won 8 or 10 medals. The new system definitely affected the Australian team achieving its medal goals.”

Recognition

In 2010, Graham was a finalist the Coach of the Year award given by the Australian Institute of Sport. That same year, Graham was also named by Australian Paralympic Committee as the Coach of the Year.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, Steve Paralympic coaches for Australia Coaches at the 1994 Winter Paralympics Coaches at the 2006 Winter Paralympics Coaches at the 2010 Winter Paralympics Coaches at the 2014 Winter Paralympics Living people 1962 births Skiing coaches