Evan O’Hanlon has the perfect Commonwealth Games record – one race and one gold in the men’s T37/38 100m – at both the Gold Coast 2018 and Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.
“I’m very excited to be selected to my second Commonwealth Games. Hopefully I can repay the efforts of everyone involved by bringing home another medal for Australia. I was lucky to be raised in a family, went to schools and lived in an area where sport was a part of life. This got me into sport early and I have obviously reaped the benefits.”
O’Hanlon, who has cerebral palsy, was recruited to Paralympic sport in 2005 and has a remarkable record. Four Paralympics for five gold, one silver and a bronze, and five world championships for eight gold, a silver and three bronze medals – the latter effort is the most medals by an Australian at the world titles.
At his first Paralympics in Beijing in 2008, he claimed three gold medals – all in world record times – including the first athlete with cerebral palsy to run 100m in under 11 seconds. In 2021, O’Hanlon became a dual-sport national representative after piloting a two-man bobsled at the Bobsleigh and Skeleton World Championships in Germany.
Evan is married to Olympic race walker Zuzana Schindlerova from the Czech Republic where they now live and they have a daughter and a son. His father Terry is a former Australian rowing coxswain and a dual world championships representative, and both his mother Jane and sister Elsa also competed at national level.