Timothy Hodge

At just 14, Timothy Hodge achieved selection to his first Australian team, travelling to Glasgow, Scotland, for the 2015 International Paralympic Committee Swimming World Championships. It was a bittersweet moment for Timothy, who only just missed the opportunity to compete against his hero, Matthew Cowdrey, on the world stage – with Matthew retiring earlier that year.

Timothy represented Australia once again at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, but it has been in the years since then that he has truly come into his own. His first major international medals came at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, where he clinched silver in the men’s 100m breastroke SB8 and men’s 100m backstroke S9 and were followed with a pair of bronze medals at the 2019 World Para-swimming Championships in London, England.

It was the silver he won in the breaststroke that shines brightest for Timothy – he set a personal best, far exceeding his own expectations, and shared the podium with his Paralympic teammates Timothy Disken and Blake Cochrane, who won gold and bronze respectively.

Swimming in his second Paralympic Games campaign in Tokyo 2020, Timothy found his spot on the dais for the first time. The 20-year-old claimed his first Paralympic medal in the men’s 100m backstroke S9, swimming a personal best time of 1:02.16. Timothy then secured the silver medal in the 200m individual medley SM9, touching the wall in 2:15.42 to come in second behind the RPC’s Andrei Kalina.

In the men’s 100m butterfly S9, he missed a spot on the podium, finishing in fifth in the final. He captured his third Paralympic medal of the Games as part of the men’s 4x100m medley relay 34 points. The Australian team – consisting of his fellow teammates Timothy Disken, Will Martin and Ben Popham – finished the race in 4:07.70 behind the Russian Paralympic Committee.