Gold for the minute man, Ben Austin
With one arm, head down and feet working like an outboard motor, there was nothing subtle about Ben Austin’s swimming style as he powered his way to gold in the 100m S8 freestyle in a new world record of 59.83s at the Athens summer Paralympics. The atmosphere in the swimming pool was electric as the crowd cheered on Greek swimmer Konstantinos Fykas, who won silver, touching out Australia’s Ricardo Moffatti, who finished third. In the lead-up to the Athens Games, there had been a race to be the first swimmer with one arm to swim the 100m freestyle in under a minute. Austin was the second to do it but his quest fired a generation of young Australian swimmers to swim with one arm by their side and understand the quality of his performances. Austin left Athens with 6 medals – 2 gold, 3 silver and a bronze.
Date: September 2004
Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).
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