Matthew McShane

Biography

Matthew McShane was born on 1 November 1990. When he was 18, he contracted transverse myelitis, a neurological condition in which the spinal cord is inflamed, that left him paraplegic. Coming home from his work one day he suddenly found that he was unable to move. He was in hospital and rehabilitation for nine months.

McShane had always enjoyed sports, particularly Australian football, surfing and Skateboarding. During rehabilitation, he was introduced to wheelchair basketball, and played his first game in a social competition on the Gold Coast. He then joined the Queensland Spinning Bullets the National Wheelchair Basketball League (NWBL) as a 1.5 point player, and played his first game with the national team, the Rollers, in November 2014. In June 2016, he toured Great Britain for the 2016 Continental Clash against Canada, Great Britain, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States. The Rollers were defeated by the United States, and won silver. In 2016, he was selected for the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro. He was one of five Rollers selected for their first Paralympics where they finished sixth.

McShane loves long walks along the beach with his girlfriend Ella and Groodle, Ivy Benson.

As of 2016, McShane is student at the Gold Coast campus of Griffith University, where he is in the third year of a Bachelor of Industrial Design degree. "I’d like to get into product design and manufacturing in some form," he said. "Maybe I can 3D print my own wheelchair, in titanium for extra strength. Basketball takes a heavy toll on our chairs and they’re not cheap. I’m already onto my third so it would be good to have a 3D printer handy.".