Madison de Rozario, OAM (born 24 November 1993) 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 (three gold, three silver and four bronze) 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.
De Rozario was born on 24 November 1993 and grew up in Perth, Western Australia.[1] At the age of four, she developed transverse myelitis, a neurological disease which inflames the spinal cord and which resulted in her wheelchair use.[2]
De Rozario's surname is of Portuguese origin. Her Singaporean-born father is of Eurasian descent[3] and her mother is Australian.[2]
Athletics
Madison de Rozario competing at the 2011 World Championships warm-up meet in Sydney in January 2011
At the 2015 IPC Athletics World Championships in Doha, de Rozario won the gold medal in the Women's 800m T54 in 1:53.86. It was her first gold medal at a major international competition.[7] She also won a bronze medal in the Women's 1500m T54 in a time of 3:42.03.[8]
At the 2016 Rio Paralympics, de Rozario won two silver medals. She won her first individual medal at the Paralympics with a silver in the Women's 800m T53. In addition, she was a member of the team that won the silver medal in the Women's 4 × 400 m Relay T53/54.[9]
In November 2016, de Rozario was awarded the Wheelchair Sports WA Sport Star of the Year.[10]
At the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships in London, de Rozario won the gold medal in the Women's 5000m T54, silver medal in the Women's 800m T54 and bronze medal in the Women's 1500m T54.[11][12][13]
De Rozario at the 2012 London ParalympicsDe Rozario at the 2012 London Paralympics
On 22 April 2018, de Rozario made a dramatic last dash sprint and won the 2018 London Marathon women's wheelchair title in a time of 1:42.58. She became the first Australian to win the women's wheelchair title.[15]
At the 2019 London Marathon, which was also the 2019 World Para Athletics Championships marathon event, de Rozario won the bronze medal in the Women's T46.[16] At the 2019 Championships track events held in Dubai, she won the gold medal in the Women's 800m T54 and two silver medals – Women's 1500m and 5000m T54.[17][18]
De Rozario won the 2021 New York City Marathon women's wheelchair race, defeating past champions Tatyana McFadden and Manuela Schär. She is the first Australian woman, either in wheelchair or open events, to claim victory on the 42km course.[22]
Kurt Harry Fearnley, is an Australian wheelchair racer, who has won gold medals at the Paralympic Games and crawled the Kokoda Track without a wheelchair. He has a congenital disorder called sacral agenesis which prevented fetal development of certain parts of his lower spine and all of his sacrum. In Paralympic events he is classified in the T54 classification. He focuses on long and middle-distance wheelchair races, and has also won medals in sprint relays. He participated in the 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 Summer Paralympic Games, finishing his Paralympic Games career with thirteen medals. He won a gold and silver medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and was the Australian flag bearer at the closing ceremony.
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