With an already stunning sporting career at such a young age, Australian Paralympic swimmer Ben Hance OAM is championing and inspiring the many athletes coming to Brisbane to compete this November by taking up the role of athlete Ambassador for the Virtus Oceania Asia Games 2022.
Australian world record swimmer, Ben Hance, says he has only one word to describe his swimming career.
After winning a gold medal in the 100m Backstroke S14 with a personal best time at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics Ben said, “I only have one word- grateful. I am grateful for my coaches, grateful for my family and grateful for my friends. Put simply I am just totally grateful.”
The win, plus a bronze medal in the butterfly event, earned the young swimmer the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) at Australia Day Honours in 2022.
Ben won a swag of four medals at the 2022 World Para Swimming Championships in Madeira. He won gold in the Men’s 100m Backstroke S14, silver in Mixed 4 × 100 m Freestyle Relay S14 and Mixed 4 × 100m Medley relay S14 and bronze in the Men’s 200 m Freestyle S14. In the medley he teamed up with Madeleine McTernan, Ricky Betar, and Ruby Storm. They won the silver medal with a time of 3:46.38, just under 6 seconds behind the winner, Great Britain, who set a world record.
Ben’s swim in S14 Men’s 100m Backstroke was sensational, breaking the Para championship record twice in one day. Keeping his performance at top-notch, Hance stayed ahead of all the swimmers from the very beginning and had a smooth win with 57.34secs, which was a championship record and breaking his previous record which he broke during the qualifying heats in the morning (57.77sec). He also took silver in the mixed 4x100m Freestyle S14 and bronze in the event.
Later in July 2022 at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, he won the silver medal in the 200m Freestyle — the only event on the swimming program for S14 swimmers.
Ben was acknowledged for his medal-winning performances at the prestigious 2021 Swimming Australia Awards being named as the AIS Swimming Discovery of the Year.
