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Army Veteran Curtis McGrath returns as the defending champion representing Australia at the Tokyo Paralympics this year, after winning the gold medal in the KL2 Paracanoe event at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games.
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Before Paralympic glory and World Championship titles, McGrath's journey began as he was being carried on a stretcher from a bomb site, to an emergency helicopter after he tragically lost both of his legs to an IED blast while deployed in an insurgent-rife area of Afghanistan at just 24 years old in August 2012.
"I had this sort of frame of mind like, guys, guys, I'll be fine," McGrath said.
"Don't worry about it, I'll just, you know, go on to the Paralympics.
"I was just trying to make them feel a little bit better about the situation, and get them to feel as though there's hope for me and what had happened."
Originally from Queenstown, New Zealand, McGrath initially wanted to join the Air Force as an Aircraft Technician but was told by the recruiter that the RAAF was not hiring for that particular position for quite sometime, even though he had the prerequisites and schooling.
"I wanted to be an Aircraft Technician, I could have done that in New Zealand, but Australia had the direct entry," he said.
"The recruiter was like, 'we're not recruiting them for the next 12 to 18 months, is there something else you'd like to do?' That's what led me down the path of combat engineering.
"I had dual citizenship when I lived in Western Australia when I was a little kid, so I came over the ditch and enlisted in the Australian Army, to continue on the adventure."
As a Combat Engineer, McGrath deployed on disaster relief and humanitarian assistance, which included Operation Astute in East Timor in 2008, followed by a stint in Padang, Indonesia, where the 1st Combat Engineer Regiment provided engineering support after a large earthquake had severely damaged key infrastructure in the area.
McGrath then deployed to the Middle East with 90 other Combat Engineers for Operation Slipper in 2012, following intensive preparation and training. The Combat Engineer role is considered to be one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, as the main responsibility is to clear improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to ensure safe passage for allied forces in a declared war-zone.
Three months into the deployment in Afghanistan, McGrath's life changed forever on a routine clearance patrol when he stepped on an IED. Aware of the horrific situation and partly to maintain consciousness as a survival mechanism, he spoke with the team helping him about becoming a Paralympian.
"I could see the guys around me were struggling, there was a few guys crying," McGrath said.
"I think that's really important to remember, you know, one person gets injured, but there's so many people that it affects.
"I could see that and if I could say something to help them feel better, I was going to do it."
Focused on his rehabilitation with resilience and determination after returning to a new normal in Australia, sport became an integral part of McGrath's recovery.
He was competing at a national level against other elite Para-athletes in the physically demanding sport of Sprint Canoe just two years after becoming a bilateral amputee.
"They were allowing me to have a session of Physio a day, but outside of that I could do as much as I want," McGrath said.
"By the time I was leaving hospital, I was doing eight or nine hours a day, just because there's not much to do in a hospital.
"I picked up the paddle in 2014 and I won my first World Championships in that first year and I was like man, this is my sport, this is my jam, I can do this!"
In 2016, McGrath took home the gold medal for the 200m KL2 Paracanoe event at the Rio Paralympics and has since donated his first Paralympic gold medal to the Australian War Memorial.
After a remarkable journey from soldier to sporting glory, McGrath is representing Australia once again at the Tokyo Paralympics this year and has set his sights on maintaining his hold on top of the podium.
"The next step is the top, I was gonna aim for that and went for it," McGrath said.
"It was a combination of all the support from everyone, the support for me to get to that moment was all partly there."
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