A winner of gold medals at three successive Paralympic Games in Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, Paralympian Anna Grimaldi is one of the best loved Para athletes in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Passionate about sport from a very young age, playing netball and basketball, Para athletics, has provided the gateway to her future success.
Attending a Paralympics New Zealand (PNZ) Talent Identification camp in Dunedin in late 2013, she has never looked back. From that moment on her life changed completely – for the better.
Attending her first IPC Athletics World Championships in 2015, Anna impressed to stand on the podium with a bronze medal.
Competing at the Paralympics
Her Paralympic dream became at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games when Anna won the hearts of Kiwis when she won gold with a personal best performance on her final jump in the Women’s Long Jump T47.
Anna’s gold medal jump contributed to the New Zealand Paralympic Team’s stunning 21-medal haul accumulated by 12 individual medallists in 2016 (nine gold, five silver and seven bronze). The Team finished first in the world per capita and 13th in the world overall (previous best: 16th).
Her success in Rio motivated Anna to commit to being a full-time athlete. After overcoming a foot stress fracture, Anna won silver in the Women’s Long Jump T47 at the 2019 World Para Athletics Championships. During the 2021 summer season, Anna was in flying form, achieving a flurry of PBs and improving her national women’s long jump T47 record by 29cm – within 10cm of the world record.
At the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, Anna became a double Paralympic champion, winning gold in the Women’s Long Jump T47. She led from the very first jump, setting a Paralympic Record of 5.74m, before bettering this jump to 5.76m on her fourth attempt.
The 2023 World Para Athletics Championships in Paris was memorable for Anna. She described the season as ‘risk-taking’ with a new coach (Mike Jacobs) and coming to Europe early to train and compete. It paid off. Anna earned her first ever global track medal with a shock bronze in the T47 100m in a time of 12.32, leading her to exclaim “I’m not a 100m runner I’m a long jumper, but I guess now I’m sort of a 100m runner!” She had set an Oceania record of 12.31 in the heat. In her signature long jump event, she smashed her national to secure silver, soaring out to 5.96m (-1.0).
Anna maintained her streak of success on the international stage at the Kobe 2024 Para Athletics World Championships by winning Long Jump T47 silver and 100m T47 bronze.
One of the two NZ Paralympic Team flagbearers at the Opening Ceremony for Paris 2024 she then went on to enjoy an unforgettable Games in the French capital. Setting two Oceania record times in the Women’s 100m T47, she claimed bronze in a time of 12.20. In the Women’s Long Jump T47 she finished fourth just 1cm shy of the podium and in her final event she set two further Oceania records in the Women’s 200m T47, taking a stunning gold medal in a time of 24.72 – to better her pre-Games PB by more than a second.
The South Islander continued her successful sporting journey at the 2025 World Para Athletics Championships in New Delhi. After missing out on a bronze medal in the Women’s 100m T47 by one- thousandth of a second, she went on to claim a bronze medal in the Women’s 200m T47 final, recording a season’s best of 24.82.
An inaugural member of the PNZ Athletes’ Council, providing a valuable athlete voice to decision-making, Anna studied both Quantity Surveying and Construction Management at Otago and Open Polytechnic, respectively.
Anna officially received her ‘numbered’ Paralympian Pin as part of The Celebration Project in Dunedin in February 2021.
