Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Nationality | Australia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Sydney, New South Wales | 6 September 1980||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 5'2 (157cm) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 57 kg (126 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Melissa Willson (born 6 September 1980) is a Paralympic swimming athlete who competed for Australia in the 2000 Paralympics. She was born on 6 September 1980 in Sydney, New South Wales . [1] She swam for the Gosford Amateur Swimming Club. [2] She competed in 5 individual events also in 2 relays. Melissa made all of the— finals at the 2000 Paralympics. She won a bronze medal at the 2000 Sydney Games in the Women's 4x50 m Freestyle 20 pts event. [3] She was trained under Peter Baldwin, who trains at Mingara Aquatic Centre.
Alix Louise Sauvage, OAM is an Australian paralympic wheelchair racer and leading coach.
Melissa Paula Carlton, OAM is a South African-born Australian swimmer. Born with no right leg and short fingers on her left hand, she won gold, silver and bronze medals for Australia at both the 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney Paralympics.
Priya Naree Cooper, is an Australian world champion disabled swimmer, winning nine Paralympic gold medals as well as world records and world championships. She competed in the Australian swimming team at the 1992, 1996 and 2000 Summer Paralympics with an S8 classification. She was twice the co-captain of the Australian Paralympic team, including at the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney, and carried the Australian flag at the closing ceremonies for the 1992 and 1996 Summer Paralympics. Cooper has cerebral palsy and spends much of her time in a wheelchair. She attended university, working on a course in health management. After she ended her competitive Paralympic career, she became a commentator, and covered the swimming events at the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
Elizabeth "Libby" Dudley Kosmala, OAM is an Australian shooter with paraplegia. She represented Australia at twelve Paralympics from 1972 to 2016, and won thirteen medals, nine of them gold.
Australia has participated officially in every Paralympic Games since its inauguration in 1960 except for the 1976 Winter Paralympics.
The 1996 Summer Paralympics were held in the United States city of Atlanta. Australia competed in 13 of the 17 sports, winning medals in 10 of those sports. At the 1996 Summer Paralympics, Australia had the second highest medal tally of any country competing. It won 42 gold, 37 silver and 27 bronze medals. It surpassed the 24 gold medals that Australia won at the 1992 Paralympics. The sports of athletics, swimming and cycling provided Australia with the majority of its medals.
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.
Amanda Fraser is an Australian Paralympic athlete and swimmer. She has cerebral palsy and competes in the F37 category for the physically impaired. Competing in the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Summer Paralympics, she won two silver and two bronze medals, and in the 2006 World Championships, she won a gold and a silver medal. In the 2006 championships, she set a world record for discus in her classification, and was named 2006 Telstra Female AWD Athlete of the Year by Athletics Australia. Fraser now works as a personal trainer, working with people unfamiliar to a gym environment, especially women. She believes it is important for women to feel empowered and she aims to help them develop their mental and physical strength.
John Desmond Eden is a leg-amputee athlete and Australian and New Zealand Paralympian.
Elizabeth Mary Edmondson PLY is an Australian Paralympic competitor and current Australian Masters competitor in swimming. She became a paraplegic after contracting polio as a small child. She won several medals in the 1964 and 1968 Summer Paralympics. She subsequently retired from swimming, only taking up the sport again in 2006 to compete in the 2008 FINA World Masters Championships in Perth.
Lorraine McCoulough-Fry was an Australian Paralympic swimmer, athlete and table tennis player.
Elizabeth Wright is an Australian Paralympic swimmer who won one bronze at the 1996 Summer Paralympics and a bronze and silver at the 2000 Summer Paralympics. She also has a Master of Philosophy in fine arts (photography).
Alicia Aberley is an Australian swimmer with an intellectual disability. She represented Australia at the 2000 Summer Paralympics, where she won several medals, and is a multiple world record holder.
Katherine "Kate" Bailey is a Paralympic swimming competitor from Australia.
Casey Redford is an Australian Paralympic swimmer. A Victorian Institute of Sport scholarship holder, she won three gold medals at the 1999 FESPIC Games, and a bronze medal at the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney in the Women's 100 m backstroke S9 event.
Sarah Rose is a Paralympic swimming competitor from Australia. She was born in Sydney with dwarfism. At the 2004 Athens Games, she competed in four events and won a bronze medal in the Women's 50 m Butterfly S6 event. At the 2008 Beijing Games she competed in four events.
Annabelle Williams, is a Paralympic swimming competitor from Australia. She has a congenital limb deficiency. She appeared in Mad Max 4. Representing Australia, she has won a gold medal at the 2012 London Paralympic Games in the 4 × 100 m medley relay, a bronze medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in the Women's 100 m Butterfly S9. At the 2006 Commonwealth Games, she earned a silver medal in the Women's 50 m Freestyle S9 and a bronze in the Women's 100 m Multi Disability Freestyle. At the 2010 Commonwealth Games, she earned a silver in the Women's 50 m Freestyle S9 event.
Teigan Van Roosmalen is an Australian Paralympic S13 swimmer. She has Usher Syndrome type 1 legally blind and Profoundly deaf. She had a swimming scholarship from the Australian Institute of Sport 2009-2012. Her events are the 100 m breaststroke, 200 m individual medley, 50 m and 100 m freestyle. She competed at the 2011 Para Pan Pacific Championships in Edmonton, where she won a gold medal in the S13 400 freestyle event. She competed at the 2008 Summer and 2012 Summer Paralympics.
Para-swimming classification is a function-based classification system designed to allow for fair competition in disability swimming. The classes are prefixed with "S" for freestyle, butterfly and backstroke events, "SB" for breaststroke and "SM" for individual medley events. Swimmers with physical disabilities are divided into ten classes based on their degree of functional disability: S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, S6, S7, S8, S9 and S10. The lower number indicates a greater degree of impairment. Those with visual impairments are placed in three additional classes: S11, S12 and S13. One more class, S14, is reserved for swimmers with intellectual impairment. A final class, S15, is for athletes with hearing loss.
Victoria "Tori" Pendergast is an Australian F58 athletics shot put competitor and LW12.1 classified Para-alpine skier. When she competed at the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi, she became Australia's first female sit skier at the Winter Paralympics. She competed in two events, finishing seventh in women's slalom sit-ski and tenth in the women's giant slalom sit-ski. She also won a silver and a bronze medal in the slalom and super-G at the 2013 North America Cup, and a bronze medal in the giant slalom at the 2013 IPC World Cup in Thredbo.