Amy Winters

Career

Amy Louise Winters, OAM (born 19 March 1978) is an arm amputee Australian Paralympic athlete. She won seven medals at three Paralympic Games, including five gold medals.

Contents

• Sydney paralympics amy winters 200m t46 final wmv
• Sydney paralympics amy winters 100m t46 final wmv
• Career
• Recognition
• References

She was born in Kempsey, New South Wales, and was born without her lower right arm. Winters has two older sisters. and she attended Kempsey High School. After leaving school in 1995, she began working for Kempsey Shire Council.

Whilst living in Kempsey, she was coached by Lloyd Smith. At the 1994 IPC Athletics World Championships in Berlin, she won silver medals in the Women's 100m, 200m and long jump T45-46 events.

She made her ParalympicGames debut as an 18-year-old at the 1996 Atlanta Games. Winters won a gold medal in the Women's 200m T42-46 event, for which she received a Medal of the Order of Australia, and a bronze medal in the Women's 100m T42-46 event. After the Atlanta Games, she moved to Sydney where she was offered a job with Westpac under the Paralympic Employment Program for elite athletes with disabilities. Once she moved to Sydney she was coached by Col Wright.

At the 1998 IPC Athletics World Championships in Birmingham, she won gold medals in the Women's 100m and 200m T46 events.

At 2000 Sydney Games, she won two gold medals in the 100m T46 and 200m T46 events, and a bronze medal in the 400m T46 event. She felt under enormous pressure going into the Sydney Games due to being the 200m title holder from Atlanta. She said "I did feel a lot of pressure, but the greatest pressure I felt was the pressure I put on myself. I remember before my final in the 200m, I felt like I was going to be physically sick. I’d never felt like that before. My usual mindset was ‘whatever happens, happens."

In the lead up to the Athens Games she was an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder and was coached by Iryna Dvoskina. At the 2004 Athens Games, she won two more gold medals in the 100m and 200m T46 events. Winning the 200m gold medal in Athens made Winters the first Paralympian in Australia to win three successive titles. In 2005, Winters retired from competing.

Winters and her husband, Sean, had their first child, Tom, in January 2010. In 2012, she became the Australian Paralympic Committee's Manager for Marketing and Sponsorship and travelled to London, liaising closely with the athlete's participating in the in the Games.

On the 24th of July 2012, Amy was inducted into the New South Wales Hall of Champions at the Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre. Winters stated that "The Hall of Champions is an illustrious list of many of the greats of Australian sport and to be considered amongst that group is extremely humbling."

Recognition