At the final Centre for Ethics talk for 2014, Matthew Cowdrey OAM spoke to the Newington community about his journey as a swimmer and a Paralympic athlete. Though Matt was born with a congenital amputation to his lower left arm, he has never let his disability stop him from doing anything in life. He emphasised that “it is not about what happened, but how you move forward” and he is most thankful to his parents for teaching him how to be resilient and ‘give it a go’.

“Mum certainly came through on her promise to give me every opportunity and the chance to succeed in life. She made sure that I was treated no differently to every other kid”, said Matt.

“No matter what it was, she made sure that I was able to do everything for myself. The only thing it has stopped me doing is the monkey bars in Year 4!”, he said.

Becoming a swimmer happened very instinctively for Matt. While he initially played more leg dominated sports, it was in the water where he felt he was in his element. “I sort of fell into swimming,” he said. “I felt like I was an equal in the water, like a normal kid.” With obvious natural talent, swimming gripped Matt and the ability to compete against other able-bodied people gave him the thirst to pursue it.

It was in 2000 when Matt first found out about the Paralympics. Four years later, at age 15, he competed in Athens as the youngest athlete ever to compete in swimming and was the youngest sportsman on the  Australian Paralympic team. Matt said that he didn’t have any expectations going into the tournament but that “standing on the block things got pretty real, pretty quickly.” Matt walked away from the games with three gold medals, two silver medals and two bronze medals. “Athens was definitely the start of something special.”

Matt emphasised the importance of having the inner confidence to believe in your own capability and to focus entirely on your individual race. “Swimming is a very controlled sport- you can only control that one lane. That’s why I love it.”

In 2008, Matt won another eight medals in Beijing and had the great honour of carrying the Australian flag at the closing ceremony. Despite these personal victories, it was gold in the men’s 4 x 100 m Freestyle Relay that Matt was really after. At the London games the Australian Paralympic Swimming team were determined to win and every swimmer trained hard for this relay. The team’s vision and training paid off and the Aussie team won this event for the first time. For Matt, this victory was by far the sweetest, and he said it was “10 years in the making”.

Throughout his career, time management has been a very important life skill for Matt and he encouraged the boys to keep up with the activities they love while also putting in the hard yards with school work. In particular, Matt emphasised the importance of having a balance in life, between “education, social life and sport.” Matt told the boys that he is most productive when he is training but he has never let swimming limit his academic opportunities. His diverse range of interests and academic pursuits are testament to this and Matt is just weeks away from finishing a double degree in journalism and law at the University of Adelaide – last summer Matt even spent four months in America in the office of a Republican Congresswoman.

Whilst Matt is passionate about swimming, he said that his teammates and their journeys has been an inspiration to him on a daily basis. Matt talked about two of his teammates who became disabled and have been able to overcome incredible setbacks. Matt said, “If there’s anything I’ve learnt throughout my time, it’s that champions aren’t made of muscle or seven foot tall. It’s about people’s belief. It’s about them choosing to succeed no matter what’s thrown in their path.”