Ashleigh Kate McConnell, OAM (born 26 March 1996) is a limb deficient Paralympic swimmer of Australia. She represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics and the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, where she won gold medals in freestyle relay events.[1][2]
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| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Ashleigh McConnell | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality | Australian | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1996-03-26) 26 March 1996 (age 28) Melbourne, Victoria | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Classifications | S9, SB8, SM9 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Club | Melbourne Vicentre | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Coach | Kenrick Monk | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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McConnell was born on 26 March 1996 in Melbourne, Victoria.[3] She was born without her left forearm and left hand.[4] She attended Sunbury College.[5] In 2015, she was studying Business at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.[4]
McConnell started swimming at the age of four.[4] She is classified as a S9 swimmer.[4] She narrowly missed out on making the 2014 Commonwealth Games and 2014 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships.[5] At the 2015 IPC Swimming World ChampionshipsinGlasgow, Scotland, she won a gold medal in the Women's 4 × 100 m Freestyle Relay 34 points.
At the 2016 Summer Paralympics, McConnell won the gold medal in the Women's 4 × 100 m Freestyle Relay 34 points and competed in three additional freestyle events.[5]
At the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, McConnell won the bronze medal in the Women's 100m Backstroke S9.[6]
At the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, McConnell, together with her team of Emily Beecroft, Ellie Cole, and Isabella Vincent won a silver medal in the Women's 4x100m Freestyle 34 pts with a time of 4:26.82, two seconds behind the winners, Italy.[7] She also qualified for the final of the Women's 100 m freestyle S9 where she finished sixth.[8]
At the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Birmingham, England, she finished 4th in the Women's 100 m freestyle S9.[9] [10]
McConnell's motto is "You can't put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the further you get".[3][4]
In 2016, with Para swimmer Monique Murphy, McConnell was named RMIT's Female Athlete of the Year.[11]
McConnell was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2017.[12]
Biography
Sports
