6 August 2025

Leeton student selected to represent Australia at the Tokyo Deaflympics

| By Erin Hee
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women's deaf football action

Ruby Miller’s (right) performance in her Deaf Football Australia debut match at Marconi Stadium wowed recruiters. Photo: Deaf Football Australia.

A Leeton High School student has become the only player from regional NSW to make the 2025 Australian Deaflympics Team.

Ruby Miller, who got to play at Sydney’s Marconi Stadium and in the United States last year, has made the Deaf Football Australia women’s squad. She will need to secure her own funds before she can jet off to the Tokyo event in November.

The Deaflympics (meaning ”Deaf and Olympics”) is an international multi-sport event for deaf athletes. Held every four years, it uses visual communication.

Ruby is a 17-year-old sporting all-rounder who has excelled in several fields. She recently took home a bronze medal in the School Sport Australia Swimming Championship as part of the NSW All-Schools team.

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Ruby was not born deaf. She got her first pair of hearing aids in Year 2.

Her mother, Ondria, said Ruby had a progressive loss of hearing that continued throughout her life.

“We think I was slightly deaf when I was born,” Ruby said. “Mum questioned it, but she was always told, ‘Oh, she’s just slow’.”

As an athlete with a disability, she has to work twice as hard compared with her teammates, and wishes her able-bodied peers could “truly understand how it is” for her. Aside from being unable to quickly locate her teammates or hear the referee, hearing loss can affect balance.

We maintain our balance using information from three parts of our bodies: the inner ear, our eyes and special receptors in our body and legs.

These three make up our balance system, and if information from any part of that system doesn’t work properly, it causes problems with balance, delays in early motor development, such as learning to walk, and dizziness.

“For example, if they played a game with noise-cancelling earbuds so they can truly understand what it’s like for me when I’m playing,” Ruby said.

“Sometimes I’m tripping over and falling onto people, and they just get annoyed, but they don’t understand what it’s really like to be deaf.

“I haven’t met anyone else out our way that’s deaf like me, they’re always older or only slightly deaf.

“I have to work so much harder in the hearing world, but when I get to the deaf world and play deaf soccer, I play so much better.”

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Ondria noticed that her daughter was much more relaxed when playing deaf soccer.

“There’s also the culture,” Ondria said.

“Sometimes people in the hearing world are not aware of what’s considered rude in the deaf world, such as waving in someone’s face is actually not considered rude.”

Ruby wants other deaf athletes to “just get in and have a go”.

“You never know what opportunities can come from it,” she said.

“Not many people have heard of them [the Deaflympics]. Whenever I meet someone who’s deaf, I always tell them about the Australian Deaf Games and the cultures and their pathways.”

Deaf Sports Australia does not receive government financial support, so players are required to secure their own funding. You can support Ruby’s journey here or contact Deaf Football Australia for sponsorship inquiries.

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