High ten for NSWIS swimmers selected for Paralympic Games

Ten NSWIS swimmers have been selected among the 36 athletes named to the Australian Paralympic Swimming Team to compete in the Rio Games this September.

The Australian Paralympic Committee will hope that the swimming contingent of the team will continue the good form shown in London four years ago, when they cleaned up with 37 medals, 18 of them gold to be Australia’s most successful Paralympic sport.

Among the NSWIS swimmers selected was Ellie Cole, who is the reigning world and Paralympic champion and this year will help lead the team alongside Queensland’s Brenden Hall.

Fellow London gold medallists and NSWIS athletes Prue Watt and Maddison Elliott will join Cole in Rio, while a total of 17 swimmers will make their Paralympic debut.

Of those making their debut, the youngest will be 14-year-old’s Tiffany Thomas-Kane (NSWIS) from Ravenswood and Katja Dedekind (QLD). They will not only be the youngest Australian swimmers, but the youngest athletes on the Australian Paralympic Team.

With this year’s team being the largest ever for an offshore Games, Australian Paralympic Swimming Team Leader Adam Pine reinforced the strong results that have been achieved to qualify so many athletes for Rio.

“The 2016 Australian Paralympic Swimming Team is our largest ever off-shore Games team, so it shows we’ve got some great depth in our athletes coming up the ranks,” Pine told the Australian Paralympic Committee.

“To qualify 36 places for Rio, we had to have some great performances in those top rankings in the 2015 period so it’s a great sign for what’s to come.

“We’ve got more of a mix in our team dynamic, in terms of youth, than we did in London. There are 17 Paralympic debutants, five of which have never been part of an Australian Team before, but there is also a lot of experience there which will serve us well in Rio.

“This team will have some great success in Rio but I’m really looking forward to the Tokyo cycle in terms of these newer up-and-coming athletes and what they can do in the future.”

So far 118 athletes have been selected for the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, with swimming being the thirteenth sport to announce their representatives.

NSWIS swimmers selected for the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games

Ellie Cole – Granville, NSW

Maddison Elliott – Gilliestone Heights, NSW

Timothy Hodge – Kings Langley, NSW

Jenna Jones – Faulconbridge, NSW

Paige Leonhardt – Port Macquarie, NSW

Matthew Levy – Northbridge, NSW

Sean Russo – Revesby, NSW

Tiffany Thomas Kane – Ravenswood, NSW

Prudence Watt – Edgecliff, NSW

Kate Wilson – Kingscliff, NSW