Sister's challenge inspires athlete
When Paralympic hopeful Brant Garvey faced his toughest physical challenge - a gruelling ironman triathlon last year - his mind turned to his younger sister Anne-Marie.
Brant, a congenital above-knee amputee, has inspired many playing wheelchair basketball, swimming and competing in triathlons, but he draws his own inspiration from Anne-Marie, a three-time cancer survivor.
Anne-Marie, 25, was diagnosed with the rare Ewing's sarcoma when she was 14.
She and her mother Lee moved from Albany to Perth for a year for her treatment and surgery after which the cancer returned in her lungs and spine. More than four years after her final round of chemotherapy, she is in the clear but has regular checks.
The physical and emotional toll the disease took on his sister will be in Brant's mind when he does the 12km HBF Run for a Reason next month to raise money for the Cancer Council WA.
"She has been a massive inspiration, when the ironman got really hard I would think about some of the things she had to go through and it put it all in perspective," he said.
"It brought our family closer together and made Anne-Marie a lot stronger."
Ms Garvey, who is studying and working as a hairdresser in Albany, said she was proud of her brother.
"He does make me feel bad though, he's 100 times fitter than I am. I couldn't even think of doing a marathon," she said. Brant, 29, ran the HBF Run for a Reason for the first time last year.
He has since raised funds for a prosthetic leg designed for running and broke a world record in the Busselton Ironman in December as fastest above-knee amputee.
He has his sights on the paratriathlon at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio.
