Trevor Hirth

Trevor Hirth’s journey to the Paralympics began when he was diagnosed with a neuromuscular disability at age two. He loved sport as a youngster, admiring heroes including Jim Stynes, Dean Jones, Anna Meares, Cathy Freeman and Ian Thorpe, but never held much hope of achieving his own sporting dreams. That was, until he discovered his talent for table tennis around age 12.

Still, the chance to represent Australia on the biggest stage remained a long way off. In fact, it wasn’t until he was 29 that he was invited to compete at the national Para-table tennis championships and, from there, he began to make his mark. Six national titles later, Trevor earned selection to a strong Para-table tennis team for Tokyo 2020.

At the Games, he went down in his single matches in the men’s individual class 6 event. He then lined up alongside Jake Ballestrino to play in the men’s team class 6-7 competition. The pair were defeated 2-0 by Great Britain’s William Bayley and Paul Karabardak in the quarterfinal.

Trevor has a strong desire to encourage more people with disability to play sport. He’s actively involved in overarching matters around his sport, including as an ITTF Athletes’ Commission Member since 2018.

Outside of sport, Trevor blasts eardrums playing bass in a thrash metal band called Diabolical Demon Director, is a self-proclaimed sport quiz genius and is really only a quarter of his stated age, as his birthday falls on February 29.