Jasmine Greenwood

At just 14, Jasmine Greenwood is the youngest Australian on the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games squad, but she has already shown, through early success and poise on the world stage, that she is an athlete to be taken as seriously as any other.

Jasmine made her international debut as a pre-teen at the 2017 Canadian Open in Toronto, where it took just two days to reach the podium with gold in the women’s 100m breaststroke SB9. This was an immense effort by the 12-year-old, but as would soon become apparent, we had seen nothing yet.

Competing at her first international multi-sport event, the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Jasmine placed fifth in the women’s 100m breaststroke SB9 and women’s 200m individual medley SM10. She followed it with a bronze medal in the women’s 100m butterfly S10 at the 2019 World Para-swimming Championships, and fourth place in the women’s 100m backstroke S10 and women’s 200m individual medley SM10.

But Jasmine was not always the superfish we know today. She only began swimming to rehabilitate an acquired brain injury, after two strokes triggered by acute appendicitis affected the movement in her entire left side. It was then that Jasmine met her coach of three years, Bob McEvoy, who introduced her to the world of Para-sport – and encouraged her to fall in love it. For Jasmine, the next step in this modern-day love story is to compete at the Paralympic Games, and all going well, she will have that opportunity come August.