LIFE has thrown many challenges at Point Turton's Hugo Taheny, but the new Down Syndrome Australia health ambassador, athletics star and much-loved community personality is living like a rockstar.
The self-appointed nickname Hugo Rockstar has stuck and is befitting of 20-year-old Hugo, who despite being legally blind, hearing impaired and having undergone open heart surgery for a major heart defect, is smashing athletics records, working two jobs and bringing joy to everyone he meets.
His zest for life is something he hopes to impart on others in his new role as a health ambassador for DSA.
With the support of father John and mother Louise, Hugo - the youngest of five children - has undertaken 10 weeks of public speaking seminars with other DSA health ambassadors as they prepare to meet with politicians and officially launch the health ambassador program at Parliament House in Canberra on March 21.
"They'll be working with medical trainees - future doctors and nurses - so they have some experience with patients with Down Syndrome," Hugo's father John said.
"There's an understanding that Down Syndrome is extremely varied in the way it presents from one person to the next.
"Hugo has had a lot of experience with health practitioners and a lot of positive experiences which have helped get him to where he is now, so he is eager to help."
Just over 20 years ago, Louise and John took three-day-old Hugo to Adelaide when things weren't travelling well.
They found out he had Down Syndrome, but also a major heart defect, as well as vision and hearing issues.
"When I was only a baby, the doctors told Mum and Dad to take me home and love me up because I might not survive," Hugo said.
"One of my goals in my role as a health ambassador is to see other kids and people with Down Syndrome have a better life."
Louise said Hugo had been telling them since he was very young that he would like to help make life better for children with Down Syndrome.
"That's probably the most powerful part of Hugo's story - you never know how it's going to go," John said.
"A lot of doctors have given him the benefit of the doubt and worked hard for him."
From what was a rocky beginning, Hugo's life has blossomed.
He works four mornings a week at the Point Turton Bakery and a full day at the Marion Bay Tavern.
He also brings joy to the community through his involvement with local sport, whether it be running water or helping behind the bar for the Southern Eagles Football Club, filling in for his local basketball team or passing on his athletics knowledge as coach of a Warooka Primary School discus thrower.
Starting athletics at the age of 10, Hugo has trained hard to become one of the world's top discus, shotput and javelin throwers in the II2 category of competition, which has recently been recognised in Australia.
In 2019, he competed in Brisbane at the INAS (now Virtus) World Games against II2 athletes from across the globe, winning gold in discus, silver in shotput and finishing fourth in javelin.
A few weeks ago, he won gold in the para discus, shotput and javelin at the state athletics championships and has broken four Virtus Australia and Oceania records in the past month.
While Hugo currently trains at Kadina and competes weekly in Adelaide, he was restricted to the family farm last year when COVID-19 struck due to the health risk it presented.
Though he missed his siblings during that time, he practiced his throwing dutifully thanks to a field mowed in the front paddock by John.
"It was tough but it was OK," Hugo said.
"I practiced on the farm with Dad."
Hugo is just as comfortable on the farm as he is in the discus ring, zipping around in his red gator vehicle with its personalised 'Hugo Rockstar' number plates.
Hugo said he also enjoyed travelling with his dad down to a property at Coonawarra, which is managed by older brother Tom.
"I help at shearing time," he said.
"I drive the gator and get the sheep back in the paddocks."
BIG FUTURE AWAITS YP'S HIGH ACHIEVER
Hugo Taheny's 'have-a-go' attitude, his advocacy for people with disabilities and sporting achievements were recognised when he was awarded Yorke Peninsula's Young Citizen of the Year in 2020.
"It felt really good," Hugo said. "I got up and made a speech and Mum had a tear in her eye."
"Everyone surrounds him with love and praise, it's just beautiful," mum Louise added.
"It's great that he can give back to society and be so involved with our local community, which is important in the country.
"When we go to Adelaide to athletics that whole athletics community is right behind him as well, which is just lovely."
Hugo's calendar is always jam-packed and the coming months are no exception.
After visiting Canberra in his ambassador role, Hugo will continue working and training for the Australian Track and Field Championships in Sydney in April.
Among the precocious young man's future goals are to keep competing on the world athletics stage, to break the II2 discus world record - which he is within a metre or so of doing - and to pen a book titled 'How to be a rockstar'.
But perhaps his biggest desire is to continue helping other people and kids with Down Syndrome have a better life.
"I want to repay people who haven give me opportunities by helping others," he said.
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