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| Full name | Evan George O'Hanlon | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality | Australia | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 4 May 1988 Sydney, New South Wales |
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| Height | 183cm | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 78kg | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Evan George O'Hanlon, OAM[1] (born 4 May 1988) is a triple gold medal winning Paralympic athlete from Australia, who competes mainly in category T38 sprint events. As of 2011[update], he is ranked first in the world.
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O'Hanlon was born on 4 May 1988 in Sydney, New South Wales. He is 183 centimetres (72 in) tall and weighs 78 kilograms (170 lb). He has cerebral palsy as a result of a prenatal stroke.[2] [3] He attended St Joseph’s College. He has five sisters, one of whom is Elsa O'Hanlon who rowed for Australia's national team. His father Terry O'Hanlon,[2] who is heavily involved with rowing in Australia,[4][2] has represented Australia on the international level. His mother has also represented Australia as a member of a national rowing squad.[3] One of his personal heroes is the Anchorman character, Ron Burgandy.[5]
As of October 2011[update]he is working on a degree in landscape architecture.[3] He is not married, and resides in Canberra and Sydney. [2]
O'Hanlon is a Paralympic athlete from Australia, competing mainly in category T38 sprint events.[6] Prior to the start of his last year of high school, he competed only against able bodied athletes.[2] In 2005, New South Wales Paralympic Talent Search Co-ordinator Amy Winters, herself a former Paralympic competitor, recruited him to participate in Paralympic sport.[2] That year, he represented Australia for the first time.[7] In December, he moved to Canberra and started training full time with Irina Dvoskina.[2]
As of October 2011[update], he is coached by Irina Dvoskina, and has a scholarship from the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS). When competing on the club level, he represents UTS North. At the age of nineteen, his records made him the fastest male cerebral palsy competitor in the world.[2] During his career, he has had to deal with painful shin splits.[7]
He competed in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, China. There he won a gold medal in the men's 100 metres - T38 event, a gold medal in the men's 200m - T38 event and a gold medal in the men's 4 x 100 metre relay - T35-38 event. He won all of these events in World Record times,[6] in the T38 100M event with a time of 10.96 and in T38 200M event with a time of 21.98.[2] His time of 10.96 was the first time a male cerebral palsy athlete had a sub 11 second record time.[3] Personal best times outside the Paralympics include a time of 51.08 in the T38 400m event, a record he set in Brisbane, and a distance of 6.11 metres (20.0 ft) in the T38 long jump event that he set in Canberra.[2] During 2011, he was training to compete in the 2012 Summer Paralympics.[3]
In 2005, he competed at the German Nationals and European Championships in the 100m and 200m events. These events were the first time he competed overseas.[5] At the IPC Athletics World Championships in 2006 , he competed in the T38 100m, but did not finish; finished third in the T38 200m event; and got a pair of gold medals in the 4x100m relay 4x400m relay events.[2] At the Australian Championships, he finished first in the T38 100m and T38 200m events in 2006, 2007 and 2008.[2] His 2006 title was his first national one, when he won the T38 100m event.[3] At the 2011 IPC Athletics World Championships, he won gold medals in the 100m and 200 events,[8][9] a silver medal in the 400m event, and a bronze in the 4x100m relay event. He finished fourth in the men's long jump event. His two gold medals at the event counted for half the total men's Australian gold medal count.[8]
In 2009 and 2010, he took time off from Paralympic athletics to compete in Australia's able-bodied domestic athletics season. He has a personal goal of being able to beat able-bodied athletes.[3][7] One of his early goals was to beat the times of fellow Paralympian athlete Tim Sullivan. He accomplished this, and was on a sprint team with Sullivan that won a Paralympic gold medal in the 4x100m event in Beijing.[7]
As of 2011, he is ranked first in the world.[5] In 2011, he was an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder training and based in Canberra.[10]
O'Hanlon has participated in rugby union. His involvement as a player ended because of repeated injuries.[7] He has also competed in rowing.[5]
O'Hanlon was AIS Junior Athlete of the Year in 2008, and was also named Athletics Australia's 2008 Athlete of the Year - Male AWD. Cleo magazine named him as a finalist in its 2008 Bachelor of the Year contest.[3] In 2009, he received the Medal of the Order of Australia "For service to sport as a gold medallist at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games".[1] In 2011, he was a nominee for The Age's Sport Performer Award in the Performer with a Disability category.[11]