Annabelle Williams

Annabelle Williams

2012 Australian Paralympic Team portrait of Williams
Personal information
Full name Annabelle Williams
Nationality  Australia
Born 21 July 1988[1]
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia[1]
Height 1.68 m (5 ft 6 in)[1]
Weight 60 kg (130 lb)[1]
Sport
Sport Swimming
Strokes Freestyle, butterfly
Classifications S9, SB8, SM9
Club Cranbrook Eastern Edge
Miami
Coach Denis Cotterell

Annabelle Williams, OAM (born 21 July 1988) is a Paralympic swimming competitor from Australia. She has a congenital limb deficiency.[2] She appeared in Mad Max 4. Representing Australia, she has won a gold medal at the 2012 London Paralympic Games in the 4x100m medley relay, a bronze medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in the Women's 100 m Butterfly S9. At the 2006 Commonwealth Games, she earned a silver medal in the Women's 50 m Freestyle S9 and a bronze in the Women's 100 m Multi Disability Freestyle. At the 2010 Commonwealth Games, she earned a silver in the Women's 50 m Freestyle S9 event.

Personal

Annabelle Josephine Williams was born on 21 July 1988 in Sydney, New South Wales and calls Varsity Lakes, Queensland home.[3][1] As a youngster, she lived in Jakarta, Indonesia, only moving back to Australia when she was ten years old.[4] She has completed a degree in international relations and law at Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland[3][5] and named Bond University Sportsperson of the year for 2007 and was a finalist for the Australian Universities Sportsperson of the Year for 2007.[2] While attending university, she completed a six-month internship in Paris, France,[3] where she worked for the Australian Embassy.[4] After the 2012 Paralympics, she completed an internship in Washington DC.[4]

Williams is missing the lower part of her left arm as the result of a congenital limb deficiency.[2][4] She is 168 centimetres (66 in) tall and weighs 60 kilograms (130 lb).[1] Before becoming a swimmer, she was involved with athletics but had to leave the sport because of a stress fracture.[3][4]

Swimming

Williams is an S9 swimmer[3][1][6] and is a member of the Cranbrook Eastern Edge SC.[1] Her main events are the 50 m, 100 m free, 50 m, and the 100 m fly.[1][6] In the 50 m freestyle event, her best time is 29.42 seconds, a time she set at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Her personal best in the 100 m freestyle is 1:03.00, a time she set at the 2009 Australian Championships.[1]

Williams competed at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne winning a silver medal in the Women's 50 m Freestyle S9 and a bronze in the Women's 100 m Multi Disability Freestyle.[1][5][7] In 2008, she was affiliated with the Miami Swimming Club, training five days a week with coaches Denis Cotterell and Raelene Ryan.[5] During the March 2008 Olympic Trials, she broke the 50 m butterfly world record in the morning during a semi-final and then broke it again in the evening during the event final. The 50 m event is not one she had actively trained for, because the distance was not on the 2008 Paralympic programme.[5] At the 2008 Beijing Games, she competed in three events and won a bronze medal in the Women's 100 m Butterfly S9 event.[1][7] She participated in the World Championships in Eindhoven, Netherlands in 2010 but did not medal.[1] At the 2009 Pan Pacific Championship in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in the World Short Course, she earned a silver medal in the 100 m fly event.[1]

While completing her Paris internship, she trained at a local French swimming club ahead of the Commonwealth Games.[3] At the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, she won a silver medal in the Women's 50 m Freestyle S9.[1][8] In preparation for the 2012 Summer Paralympics, she was one of 14 Australian Paralympic swimmers to participate in a training camp start on 13 May 2012 and ending 29 May at British International School Phuket.[4] She had already qualified for the Games as one of the top-three ranked swimmers in the world in her classification.[4]

Williams trained on the Gold Coast in Queensland at Pizzey Park where she was coached by Denis Cotterell.[3][1]

She was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in the 2014 Australia Day Honours "for service to sport as a Gold Medallist at the London 2012 Paralympic Games."[9]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 "Profile of Annabelle Williams". Swimming Australia. Archived from the original on 15 August 2012.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Annabelle Williams". IOC Swimming Website. International Paralympic Committee. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 "Annabelle Williams". Australian Paralympic Committee Website. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 "Paralympians dive into Phuket". The Phuket News. 14 May 2012. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 "Hard work pays off for Annabelle Gold Coast Sport". goldcoast.com.au. 28 March 2008. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Jano Gibson in Delhi (5 October 2010). "Aussie Williams has stars in her eyes –". ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Retrieved 6 June 2012.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Athlete Search Results". International Paralympic Committee. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
  8. ↑ "Commonwealth silver for Williams". Australian Paralympic Committee News, 5 October 2010. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
  9. ↑ "Australia Day honours list 2014: in full". Daily Telegraph. 26 January 2014. Retrieved 26 January 2014.

External links

Wikinews has related news: 2012 Australian Paralympic swim team announced