Nationality Australia Role Paralympic Athlete | Name Sam Carter | |
Born 6 August 1991 (age 32) ( 1991-08-06 ) Toowoomba | ||
Samuel "Sam" Harrison Carter is a Paralympic athlete, who competes in 100m, 200m, 400m T54 events. He has represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics in athletics.
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Personal
Carter was born on 6 August 1991, he has Spina bifida. He attended Harristown State High School in Queensland. Before becoming a wheelchair racer, Carter was actively engaged in sport in particular swimming and wheelchair basketball. He then attended a try day held by Queensland Sporting Wheelies in 2001. At the event Carter met Paralympian Geoff Trappett who won gold in the T54 and encouraged Carter to become involved in wheelchair racing. His sporting hero is Kurt Fearnley. When not training he is studying law at the University of Southern Queensland and playing his guitar.
Sporting career
Carter began competing in 2003 as a junior athlete. He has worked with Andrew Dawes and Louise Sauvage to improve his performance and trained with wheelchair athlete Sybilla Austin. In 2008 he broke national age records for the 100m, 200m and 400m in wheelchair racing. He went on to become the 200m junior world champion. One of his career highlights was winning gold in the 100m at the 2009 Junior Athletics World Championships. In 2011 Carter made the transition into adult competitions where, he has competed against wheelchair racers such as David Weir and Marcel Hug. Carter represented Australia at the 2011 IPC Athletics World Championships in Christchurch in the T54 100m, 200m and 400m. He also competed in the 2011 Gold Coast Wheelchair Half Marathon which he won. In 2013 Carter was selected to represent Australia, in the T54 100m, 200m and 400m at the 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships in Lyon.] He placed 6th and 5th in the T54 100m and 200m respectively. He won gold and silver at the 2015 Brisbane IPC Grand Prix in the T54 100m and 400m respectively.
At the 2015 IPC Athletics World Championships in Doha, Carter finished sixth in the Men's 100 m T54, fifth in the Men's 200 m and sixteenth in the Men's 400 m T54.
At the 2016 Rio Paralympics, Carter finished sixth in the Men's 100 m T54 and was ranked 15th in the Men's 400 m T54.
Recognition
In 2009 Carter won the Sports Darling Downs senior rookie of the year. Recently, Carter has been named as having podium potential by Athletics Australia in the T54 100m, 400m and 4 × 400 m. As of 2014 Carter receives a scholarship from the Queensland Academy of Sport and a grant from the Australian Institute of Sport.