Katie (Kate) Wilson (born 4 June 1998) is an Australian Paralympic swimmer. She represented Australia at the
2016 Rio Paralympics
The 2016 Summer Paralympics (), the 15th Summer Paralympic Games, were a major international multi-sport event for athletes with disabilities governed by the International Paralympic Committee, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 to 18 Sept ...
.
Personal
Wilson was born on 4 June 1998 with
achondroplasia
Achondroplasia is a genetic disorder with an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance whose primary feature is dwarfism. It is the most common cause of dwarfism and affects about 1 in 27,500 people. In those with the condition, the Rhizomeli ...
, a form of dwarfism that affects the upper and lower limbs.
She is the oldest of three children and has one sister and one brother.
[ For primary school, she attended St Anthony's Catholic Primary School in Kingscliff where she has lived for the majority of her life. For high school she attended Mount Saint Patrick's College ]Mount Saint Patrick College
Mount Saint Patrick College, also known as Mt Saint Patrick College, is an independent Roman Catholic co-educational secondary day school, located in Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia, operating within the system administered by the Lismo ...
in Murwillumbah
Murwillumbah ( ) is a town in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia, in the Tweed Shire, on the Tweed River. Sitting on the south eastern foothills of the McPherson Range in the Tweed Volcano valley, Murwillumbah is 848&nbs ...
and undertook her HSC in 2016. As of 2018 she is undertaking a Bachelor of Vision Science/Master of Optometry at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
Her grandfather Kevin Wilson played for the St George Dragons
The St. George Dragons are an Australian rugby league, rugby league football club from the St George, Sydney, St George District in Sydney, New South Wales that played in the top level New South Wales Rugby League, New South Wales competition ...
1952 to 1955 and her uncle Martin O'Connell played for the Penrith Panthers
The Penrith Panthers are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Greater Western Sydney suburb of Penrith, New South Wales, Penrith that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL). The team is based west of the cen ...
from 1999 to 2001.[ Her mother Susan Wilson was also a member of the Australian University Netball Team.
]
Swimming
Wilson took swimming as a child at the advice of a paediatrician and has been swimming all her life. At the age of 13, she began to take swimming more seriously. She is classified as a S6 swimmer. She is 129 cm tall and just qualifies for S6 limit of 130 cm.[ At the 2013 Australian Swimming Championships she won a silver medal in the Women's 50m Breaststroke. In 2016, after three years, she recorded a personal best time in the same event and won a bronze medal.][
From 2013 to 2016 she trained Kingscliff Swimming Club under the guidance of Coach Dwain Fitzsimmons.
She made her international debut at the Berlin Open Swimming Championships in June 2016. At the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, she competed in four individual events and one relay. Her individual events included the women's 50m freestyle S6, 100m freestyle S6, 100m breaststroke SB6 and 200m individual medley SM6. She was also a heat swimmer for the 4x50 freestyle relay 20pts. She made the final of the 100m Breaststroke and placed 7th.]
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Kate
Female Paralympic swimmers for Australia
Swimmers at the 2016 Summer Paralympics
Living people
1998 births
S6-classified para swimmers
Swimmers with dwarfism
Australian female freestyle swimmers
Australian female breaststroke swimmers
Australian female medley swimmers
21st-century Australian sportswomen
Swimmers from Sydney
Sportswomen from New South Wales