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| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Ashleigh McConnell | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality | Australian | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 26 March 1996 Melbourne, Victoria | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Classifications | S9, SB8, SM9 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Club | Melbourne Vicentre | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Coach | Kenrick Monk | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Ashleigh Kate McConnell, OAM (born 26 March 1996) is a limb deficient Paralympic swimmer of Australia. She represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics and the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, where she won gold medals in freestyle relay events. [1] [2]
McConnell was born on 26 March 1996 in Melbourne, Victoria. [3] She was born without her left forearm and left hand. [4] She attended Sunbury College. [5] In 2015, she was studying Business at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. [4]
McConnell started swimming at the age of four. [4] She is classified as a S9 swimmer. [4] She narrowly missed out on making the 2014 Commonwealth Games and 2014 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships. [5] At the 2015 IPC Swimming World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, she won a gold medal in the Women's 4 × 100 m Freestyle Relay 34 points.
At the 2016 Summer Paralympics, McConnell won the gold medal in the Women's 4 × 100 m Freestyle Relay 34 points and competed in three additional freestyle events. [5]
At the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, McConnell won the bronze medal in the Women's 100m Backstroke S9. [6]
At the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, McConnell, together with her team of Emily Beecroft, Ellie Cole, and Isabella Vincent won a silver medal in the Women's 4x100m Freestyle 34 pts with a time of 4:26.82, two seconds behind the winners, Italy. [7] She also qualified for the final of the Women's 100 m freestyle S9 where she finished sixth. [8]
At the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Birmingham, England, she finished 4th in the Women's 100 m freestyle S9. [9] [10]
McConnell's motto is "You can't put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the further you get". [3] [4]
In 2016, with Para swimmer Monique Murphy, McConnell was named RMIT's Female Athlete of the Year. [11]
McConnell was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2017. [12]
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.
Ellie Victoria Cole, is an Australian retired Paralympic swimmer and wheelchair basketball player. After having her leg amputated due to cancer, she trained in swimming as part of her rehabilitation program and progressed more rapidly than instructors had predicted. She began competitive swimming in 2003 and first competed internationally at the 2006 IPC Swimming World Championships, where she won a silver medal. Since then, she has won medals in the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, the Commonwealth Games, the Paralympic Games, the IPC Swimming World Championships, and various national championships.
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Timothy Malcolm Disken, is an Australian paralympic swimmer. He represented Australia at the 2015 IPC Swimming World Championships and won bronze in the men's 4 × 100 m freestyle relay. At the 2016 Rio Paralympics, he won a gold medal in the men's 100m freestyle S9, a silver medal in the men's S9 50m freestyle and a bronze medal in the men's 200m individual medley SM9. He also competed at the 2020 Summer Paralympics.
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Toni Stephanie Shaw is a British Paralympic swimmer. In 2019 she set the world record time for the S9 200m butterfly, and was also part of the team that set a new world record for the 4 × 100 m medley relay. At the 2020 Summer Paralympics, she won a bronze medal in the women's 400 metre freestyle S9 event and later went on to win gold at the 2022 World Para Swimming Championships, becoming the World Champion. She is a three-time World Champion and two-time European Champion.
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