THE HALBERG GAMES TRANSFORMED DANIELLE AITCHISON’S LIFE, LAUNCHING A WORLD-CLASS
CAREER BUILT ON BELIEF, BELONGING AND SPEED.
As a teenager who loves sport, Danielle Aitchison’s first experience at the Halberg Games in 2017 was not about world championships or Paralympic medals. She was curious about what a sport festival for young people with disabilities would feel like.
Today, Aitchison is one of New Zealand’s top Para sprinters, competing at the World Para Athletics Championships and Paralympic Games, winning world titles, and smashing records. But the ignition point? That happened barefoot on the track with Halberg.
“I saw an advertisement and registered. That’s been the most important turning point of my life,” begins Danielle Aitchison.
She left with more than a medal, a reignited belief.
A Weekend That Changed Everything
The Halberg Games was Aitchison’s introduction to disability sport. As a sport-loving kid, always active, mainstream sport became increasingly tough in high school. Eventually, she walked away.
At the Halberg Games, she understood she didn’t have to. “It was really eye-opening,” she remembers. “I didn’t even know there was a whole community.”
It was less about competition and more like a sports camp with athletes staying together, trying new sports, making new friends. For a young disabled girl, the feeling of belonging was instantaneous and the environment was encouraging.
“There was just this real energy and excitement, like, oh my gosh, I can play sport. I don’t have to miss out anymore.”
She remembers feeling nervous at first, wondering if she had a place. But the support of her fellow athletes especially the Waikato team made her feel at total ease.
“Everyone was just having the time of their life. That encouragement gave me the confidence to try things I would have been too scared to do otherwise.”
She tried multiple sports, connected with athletes and families, and unknowingly laid the foundation for her future career. And nine years on, that memory lives on as the start of a very successful sporting career.
The Barefoot Spark
Barefoot in shorts and a T-shirt, she ran the 100m and 200m like any country kid would. Post the race, a coach tapped her on the shoulder and said she had something special.
It changed the course of her life.
As a teenager, Aitchison had struggled with identity and self-esteem. Sport had been a huge part of her identity. Losing it had shaken her confidence.
“For a coach to say, ‘You’re really good at running, you should pursue it’, that was a spark. Maybe I am better than I think.”
Then came sacrifice- long drives to training, navigating classification, and learning the high-performance system with her mother’s steady support. Getting reclassified every six months wasn’t easy, but Aitchison kept at it.
When Aitchison began competing at the elite level, her relationship with sport changed. Her early international experiences were overwhelming– new systems, new demands, new pressure. Sport went from fun to proving herself.
“It was about getting the balance right for competition- enjoying it and have that small element of pressure being a high-performance athlete,” she says. “It is my full-time job and about proving the training was working.”
There were times when results didn’t match the work. With experienced, Aitchison learnt to find the balance and deliver results too.
“I need to enjoy competition. I run fastest when I’m having fun.”
At the 2024 World Championships in Kobe, she raced without pressure and finished with gold and a world record. Aitchison was there to confirm classification, but came back with so much more again.
And again in 2025, after taking a step back from the sport post the Paralympic Games in Paris to find balance, she returned to the World Championships with two podium finishes.
“It was probably the best trip of my career,” she says. “I was just enjoying it and I ran incredibly fast.”
Belonging, visibility and inclusive sport
As a child, sport was just activity. Para sport gave her something deeper – identity and belonging. Para sport brought a new element: identity, belonging, visibility.
“Para sport is another platform for me to do what I love doing, running fast,” she says. “I learnt so much now about sport and my disability which I would have never thought about if I didn’t participate in sport.”
Training at the high-performance centre in Waikato, among other athletes, has reinforced that sense of belonging, even though much of her sprint training is done alone.
But Aitchison believes that is still a lot that needs to be done. From inaccessible national venues to the cost of traveling with support staff, she thinks New Zealand has a lot of work to do, though come a long way.
“Why would you hold nationals somewhere athletes can’t even access the track? Accessibility shouldn’t be an afterthought.”
Her vision, she says is simple: “sport for all, no matter age, race, gender, or disability.”
When we remove accessibility barriers, we open the door for so many people who are missing out on sport and joy.
Life beyond the track
Outside of elite sprinting, Aitchison is an outdoorsy person who enjoys hiking, camping, surfing and biking. But high-performance training doesn’t always allow for that sort of spontaneity, so she makes sure to take breaks to recharge.
“It motivates me in training,” she says. “Train hard, then you can look forward to that adventure.”
With goals still to chase, medals to win and records to break, it all comes back to one simple thing, the joy of running fast and loving the life she’s built around it.
