Full name Ashleigh McConnell Name Ashleigh McConnell Classifications S9, SB9, SM9 | Nationality Australia | |
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Ashleigh Kate McConnell OAM (born 26 March 1996) is a limb deficient Paralympic swimmer of Australia. She won a gold medal at the 2015 IPC Swimming World Championships. She represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.
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Personal
McConnell was born on 26 March 1996 Melbourne, Victoria. She is missing her left forearm and left hand. She attended Sunbury College. In 2015, she is studying Business at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
Career
McConnell started swimming at the age of four. She is classified as a S9 swimmer. She narrowly missed out on making the 2014 Commonwealth Games and 2014 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships. At the 2015 IPC Swimming World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, she won a gold medal in the Women's 4 × 100 m Freestyle Relay 34 points.
Her goal has been to qualify for the 2016 Summer Paralympics. Her motto is "You can't put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the further you get".
In 2016, she is a Victorian Institute of Sport scholarship holder and coached by Brad Harris at Melbourne Vicentre Swimming Club. She was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 2017.
