Andrew Mullen (born 29 November 1996) is a British Paralympian swimmer. Mullen competes in the S5 disability category in freestyle, backstroke and butterfly, specialising in sprint events. He competed in the 2012 and 2016 Summer Paralympics and won a silver and two bronze medals in 2016. [1] Earlier in 2013 he won silver and bronze at the World Championships in Montreal.
Mullen was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1996. He was born with a shortened left leg. [2] He was educated at Mearns Castle High School. [3]
Mullen began swimming from a young age, and at the age of seven he became a member of Temple Swimming club. [4] While at Temple he entered meets organized by Scottish Disability Sport, showing promise as a competitive swimmer. [3] At the age of 10, after attending a gala in Dundee, he was approached by Paralympic champion swimmer Kenny Cairns, who believed Mullen had the potential to challenge at the highest level of the sport. Mullen took great inspiration from the meeting, giving him the belief to become a world champion. [3] Mullen increased his training hours after being accepted by local club REN 96. At the age of 12 he was accepted into the Scottish Junior Squad, travelling to Sheffield for further training sessions. [3]
In 2010 Mullen recorded times that saw him accepted into the British Swimming World Class Talent Programme. [3] This led to him entering his first international swimming competition when he was part of the British team to compete at the 2011 IPC Swimming European Championships in Berlin. He entered three events, all in the S5 category, the 100m freestyle, 50m butterfly and 200m individual medley. He took two medals at the games, silver in the butterfly and bronze in the individual medley. [4] In 2012 at the age of 15, he qualified for the Great Britain team for the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. [3]
At the 2012 Paralympics, Mullen was entered for the 50m freestyle, 50m butterfly and 50m individual medley. In his first event, the 50m freestyle he progressed through the heats, taking the final slot as the eighth fastest qualifier. In the final he finished eighth. His second event the 50m backstroke he again qualified through the heats, this time finishing in second place, and recording the fourth fastest time. The finals saw Mullen finishing fourth, just over half a second behind bronze medalist Zsolt Vereczkei of Hungary. Mullen's final event, the 50m butterfly, he again qualified through his heats only to again finish just outside the medals in fourth position. [4]
Mullen was back in the British team the next year when he travelled to Montreal to compete in the 2013 IPC Swimming World Championships. There he was entered into five events in the S5 category: the 50m Butterfly, 50m Backstroke, 200m Individual Medley, 100m Freestyle and 50m Freestyle. He finished 5th in the 50m freestyle and 4th in the 100m freestyle, but medaled in the other three events. He took silver in the 200m individual medley and 50m backstroke, beaten to first place on both occasions by Brazil's Daniel Dias. In the 50m butterfly he won bronze, again behind Dias (silver) and Roy Perkins (gold). [5] [6]
Matthew John Cowdrey is an Australian politician and Paralympic swimmer. He presently holds numerous world records. He has a congenital amputation of his left arm; it stops just below the elbow. Cowdrey competed at the 2004 Paralympic Games, 2006 Commonwealth Games, 2008 Paralympic Games, 2010 Commonwealth Games, and the 2012 Paralympic Games. After the 2012 London Games, he is the most successful Australian Paralympian, having won thirteen Paralympic gold medals and twenty three Paralympic medals in total. On 10 February 2015, Cowdrey announced his retirement from swimming.
Jessica Tatiana Long is a Russian-American Paralympic swimmer from Baltimore, Maryland, who competes in the S8, SB7 and SM8 category events. She has held many world records and competed at five Paralympic Games, winning 29 medals. She has also won over 50 world championship medals.
Dame Sophie Frances Pascoe is a New Zealand para-swimmer. She has represented New Zealand at four Summer Paralympic Games from 2008, winning a total of eleven gold medals, seven silver medals and one bronze medal, making her New Zealand's most successful Paralympian. She has also represented New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games.
Brenden Hall, is an Australian Paralympic amputee swimmer who won two gold medals at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. He represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics where he won one gold, one silver and one bronze medal. He competed at 2020 Summer Paralympics, his fourth games.
Matthew John Levy, is a retired Australian Paralympic swimmer. At five Paralympic Games from 2004 to 2020, he has won three gold, one silver and six bronze medals.
Lynette Margaret "Lyn" Lillecrapp, OAM is an Australian Paralympic swimmer. She contracted paralytic polio at the age of two months. Lillecrapp started her competitive swimming career in 1974, and competed at the 1976 Toronto, 1988 Seoul and 1992 Barcelona Summer Paralympics.
Taylor Corry is an Australian S14 swimmer. At the 2012 Summer Paralympics, she won two silver medals.
Grant Patterson is an Australian Paralympic swimmer. At the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, his second games, he won a silver and bronze medal.
Katherine Rose Downie is an Australian Paralympian. Kat first represented Australia in 2011. Kat represented Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in swimming and was a member of both the Gold medal Women's 34 point 4 x 100 free and 4 × 100 medley relay teams. Kat placed fourth in both her pet events the 100 backstroke and 200IM.
Yoshikazu Sakai is a Japanese paralympic swimmer who competes mainly in category S11 events.
Hannah Russell, is a British Paralympic swimmer competing in S12 classification events. In 2012, she became British S12 champion in the 100m backstroke and qualified for the 2012 Summer Paralympic Games where she won a silver in the 400m freestyle and a bronze in the 100m butterfly. In the 2016 Summer Paralympic Games, she won the gold medal in the 100m backstroke with the time of 1:06:06 earning her the World Record.
Jessica-Jane Applegate MBE is a British Paralympic swimmer. Applegate competes in the S14 classification for swimmers with intellectual disabilities, mainly freestyle and backstroke preferring shorter distances. She qualified for the 2012 Summer Paralympics and on 2 September, Applegate won the gold setting a Paralympic record in the S14 200m freestyle.
Stephanie Millward, is a British Paralympic swimmer.
Alexander "Alec" Robert Elliot is a Canadian competitive Paralympic swimmer.
Brian David Hill is a S13 Canadian para-swimmer who has competed in the 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 Summer Paralympics and the 2007 Parapan American Games. He had won five gold medals, three silver medals and 3 bronze medals in his international career. Hill started swimming as a child and competitive swimming at the age of nine. He has won the British Columbia Blind Sports Award and Athlete of the Year Award.
Jesse Aungles is an Australian Paralympic swimmer. He represented Australia at the 2016 Summer Paralympics and the 2020 Summer Paralympics
Tully Alicia Jacqueline Kearney is a British Paralympic swimmer. Kearney competes in the S5 classification for swimmers with physical disabilities. She won Gold and Silver at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games setting World records in both the 50 m and 100 m freestyle. She has also won medals in three IPC Swimming World Championships winning Bronze in the 2013 IPC Swimming World Championships, setting a British record; four Golds, a Silver and a Bronze in the 2015 World Championships setting three European records and becoming GB's highest medal earner of the Championships, and three Golds at the World Para Swimming Championships in 2019, setting three British records and two Championship records. In addition, she won Gold and Bronze at the World Para Swimming European Championships in 2018. Kearney is a multiple British, European and World record holder.
Alice Tai, is a British paralympic swimmer. Tai competes in the SB8, SM8 and S8. She has represented Great Britain at European and World Championships and at the Commonwealth and Paralympic Games, gold medals at all levels.
Denis Tarasov is a Paralympic swimmer from Russia competing mainly in category S8 events. At the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London he won five medals, including gold in the 50 metre freestyle S8 event. He has represented Russia at two IPC World Championships with a total of 12 medals. At the 2015 IPC Swimming World Championships in Glasgow he set four world records, two as part of Russian relay teams and two individual records, in the 50m and 100m freestyle S8 events.
Michael Charles Andrew is an American competitive swimmer and an Olympic gold medalist. He was the 2016 world champion in the 100 meter individual medley. At his first Olympic Games, the 2020 Summer Olympics, he won a gold medal and set a world record as part of the 4x100 meter medley relay, placed fourth in the 100 meter breaststroke, fourth in the 50 meter freestyle, and fifth in the 200 meter individual medley. Andrew's swims in 2021 at the 2020 Olympics made him the first swimmer to represent the United States at an Olympic Games in an individual breaststroke event as well as another individual event other than an individual medley in the then-125-year-history of swimming at the Summer Olympics. He has won 78 medals at Swimming World Cup circuits.
