Though she is hearing impaired, Rona Lazo-Treloggen has not let her disability stop her from living life in the fast lane.
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The Gunning resident is a self-confessed sports nut, and she achieved the latest in a long list of accolades recently when she was named in the South Australian deaf women's cricket team which will play against Victoria in Victoria from January 15 to 17.
As women's deaf cricket is still developing, each state does not have the numbers to produce an entire team. Therefore, Deaf Cricket Australia decided to consolidate the tournament into a best-of-three-matches competition between South Australia and Victoria, with players from a number of states around the country being drafted into both teams.
Lazo-Treloggen, who plays for North Canberra Gungahlin in Canberra's women's competition, only took up cricket two years ago, and the team's inclusiveness and willingness to experiment has helped her progress in leaps and bounds.
"They've really challenged me, thrown me out to bat and everything,things that I'm not very confident about," Lazo-Treloggen said.
"With their training I'm feeling a lot more confident. They don't treat me special ... they hadn't played with deaf players before, so they said 'how do we communicate with you?'
"We've come up with a whole lot of simple signs, like 'run', 'don't run'.
"With these communication strategies, I'm a whole lot more confident and feel like I'm challenged at the right level with that."
Though she lost most of her hearing at the age of six after she fell and ruptured her eardrums, Lazo-Treloggen's passion for sport was not diminished in the slightest.
She has competed for the DeafACT team in beach volleyball, for whom she won a gold medal at the 2018 Australian Deaf Games, in women's rugby, where she won silver with the Deaf Australian women's team at the World Deaf Rugby Sevens in 2018, and a gold medal for the Australia Deaf Women's Futsal team against New Zealand.
Lazo-Treloggen was also a member of the South Australian Deaf Women's Cricket team in the first deaf women's cricket exhibition match at the National Inclusion Cricket Championships in Geelong last year.
Aside from the benefits of keeping fit and the sheer enjoyment of competing, Lazo-Treloggen also employs sport as a stress-reliever.
"I find sport is really good for general health and mental health," she said.
"I always feel good when I do something physical, without sport I feel more run down. I really like to be involved in sports competitions, it keeps me healthy, mentally healthy, positive, it's really good all-round for me."
Lazo-Treloggen said the physical outlet of sport provides a good counterbalance for the mental outlet which her other interests provide.
"I've got two different worlds, I really like rough sports, but I also like doing very formal and artistic things; I actually qualified in fashion design," she said.
"But I find that rougher sports are a good outlet for me."
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