Jennifer Patricia Banks OAM is an Australian athletics coach specialising with Paralympic wheelchair athletes.
She was born in Perth, Western Australia. [1] She has completed a Masters in Education at the University of Western Australia where her thesis was titled 'Psychological factors in sports injuries among elite hockey players'.
In her early sporting career, Banks was a field hockey goalkeeper and she represented Western Australia and Australia. [2] She retired due to a serious knee injury just after she started representing Australia. [3] In 1991 she was an Australian Institute of Sport Satellite Coach in Perth where she coached Louise Sauvage and Paul Wiggins, amongst others (including Fabian Blattman and Greg Smith) . [4] She was an athletics coach on the Australian team at the 1994 Commonwealth Games. [5] Banks worked as the Director of Sport and High Performance Manager for the Australian Paralympic Committee (APC) from 1994 to 2003. During this period, Australia finished second on the medal tally at the Atlanta Summer Paralympics (after finishing seventhon the medal tally at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Paralympics), first on the medal table at the Sydney Summer Paralympics and 4th on the medal table the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Paralympics. After leaving the APC in 2003, she established Creating Excellence Consulting that worked with many state, national and international sports organisations including the Australian Sports Commission/Australian Institute of Sport, Basketball Australia, Cycling Australia, Triathlon Australia, the International Triathlon Union and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority. [3] She contributed to coaching resources published by the Australian Sports Commission.
She coached British wheelchair racer Tanni Grey-Thompson to multiple Paralympic gold medals . Grey-Thompson commented that she would send "data including video clips and jpeg files with all my physiological details and Jenni's able to analyse them all, sending her comments and criticisms back via email". [6]
In 2010, she was appointed as the part-time handcycling coach with Cycling Australia Paracycling High Performance Program and was a cycling coach on the Australian team at the 2012 London Paralympics. [3] [7] Banks moved to the United Kingdom in 2012 to take up a five-year contract as British Athletics Institute Coach for Wheelchair Racing. [3] Whilst in this position she was responsible for all wheelchair racing aspects of the British Athletics World Class and Talent Development Programs and coached Hannah Cockroft to three gold medals at the 2016 Rio Paralympics and eight gold medals at three IPC Athletics World Championships. [8] She also coached Richard Chiassaro, Toby Gold and Stephen Osborne during this time.
Since January 2018 she has worked as a Consultant Coach with British Athletics and is coaching British Paralympic athletes Hannah Cockroft and Richard Chiassaro [9] as well as mentoring other athletes and personal coaches.
References
Carys Davina Grey-Thompson, Baroness Grey-Thompson,, is a Welsh life peeress, television presenter and former wheelchair racer.
Alix Louise Sauvage, OAM is an Australian paralympic wheelchair racer and leading coach.
Paralympics Australia (PA) previously called the Australian Paralympic Committee (APC) (1998–2019) is the National Paralympic Committee in Australia for the Paralympic Games movement. It oversees the preparation and management of Australian teams that participate at the Summer Paralympics and the Winter Paralympics.
Australia competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics Games in London, United Kingdom, from 29 August to 9 September 2012. The London Games were the biggest Games with 164 nations participating, 19 more than in the 2008 Beijing Paralympic. Australia has participated at every Summer Paralympic Games and hosted the 2000 Sydney Games. As such, the 2000 Sydney Games, regarded as one of the more successful Games, became a point-of-reference and an inspiration in the development of the 2012 London Games.
Madison de Rozario, is an Australian Paralympic athlete and wheelchair racer who specialises in middle and long-distance events. She competed at the 2008 Beijing, 2012 London, 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo Summer Paralympics, winning two gold medals, three silver and a bronze. She has also won ten medals at the World Para Athletics Championships and four gold at the Commonwealth Games. De Rozario holds the world record in the Women's 800m T53 and formerly in the Women's 1500m T53/54.
Angela Ballard is an Australian Paralympic athlete who competes in T53 wheelchair sprint events. She became a paraplegic at age 7 due to a car accident.
Amy Louise Winters, OAM is an arm amputee Australian Paralympic athlete. She won seven medals at three Paralympic Games, including five gold medals.
Gregory Stephen Smith, OAM is an Australian Paralympic athlete and wheelchair rugby player who won three gold medals in athletics at the 2000 Summer Paralympics, and a gold medal in wheelchair rugby at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, where he was the flag bearer at the opening ceremony.
Deahnne Mary McIntyre, OAM is an Australian former Paralympic athletics competitor and one of few Australian female powerlifters. She won four medals in the 1988 Seoul Paralympic Games in athletics, and competed in powerlifting from 2000 until her retirement from the sport in January 2011.
Rheed McCracken is an Australian Paralympic athletics competitor. He named the 2012 Junior Athlete of the Year as part of the Australian Paralympian of the Year Awards. He represented Australia at the 2012 London Paralympics, 2016 Rio Paralympics and 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, where he won three silver and two bronze medals.
Jodi Elkington-Jones is Australian athlete who has cerebral palsy. She represented Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics and has also competed in two Commonwealth Games, winning gold in the 2014 Games in the F37/38 long jump. She represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics in athletics.
Kristy Pond is an Australian athletics competitor. She was selected to represent Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in athletics in the 100 metre and 200 metre events. She did not medal at the 2012 Games.
Hannah Lucy Cockroft is a British wheelchair racer specialising in sprint distances in the T34 classification. She holds the world records for the 100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres, 800 metres and 1500 metres in her classification and the Paralympic records at 100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres and 800 metres. Competing for Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, she won two gold medals. She won three further gold medals at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Jade Jones-Hall, known previously as Jade Jones, is an English wheelchair racer, competing in T54 events, and a paratriathlete competing in handbike-to-wheelchair classifications. Jones competed in the 2012 Summer Paralympics in the 400m, 800m and 1500m. In 2018, she won the gold medal in Paratriathlon at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Kathleen Margaret "Katie" Kelly is an Australian paratriathlete, who has a degenerative disease known as Usher syndrome. Kelly began competing in the PT5 paratriathlon classification in February 2015 when her condition deteriorated to a legally blind state. She has just 30 per cent of her vision. With her guide Michellie Jones, Kelly won gold medals at the 2015 and 2017 ITU World Championships and 2016 Rio Paralympics. She competed at the 2020 Summer Paralympics.
Samuel Harrison Carter is a Paralympic athlete, who competes in 100m, 200m, 400m T54 events. He has represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics and 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
Karé Adenegan is a British wheelchair athlete specialising in sprint distances in the T34 classification. She was classified as a disability athlete in 2013.
Lauren Parker is an Australian paratriathlete. She won a silver medal at the 2020 Summer Paralympics.
Fabienne André is a British wheelchair racer. In 2021, she won gold in the 100 m and 800 m at the 2021 World Para Athletics European Championships.
Nathan Maguire is a British wheelchair racer. He won multiple medals at both the 2018 and 2021 World Para Athletics European Championships, and also won the 400 metres mixed class race at multiple British Athletics Championships. Maguire competed in the 4 × 400 metres relay T53/T54 at the 2016 Summer Paralympics, and competed in the 400 metres T54, 800 metres T54 and mixed 4 × 100 metres relay events at the delayed 2020 Summer Paralympics. He was part of the British team that won a silver medal in the 2020 Paralympic mixed 4 × 100 metres relay. He also competed for England at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and won the 1500 metres T54 event at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.