Corey Anderson

It was in 2017 when Corey was competing at the International Federation for Athletes with Intellectual Impairments (INAS) World Athletics Championships in Bangkok, Thailand, when his eagle-eyed mum noticed that he moved to differently to the other athletes in his field. The duo left Thailand determined to find out why, and when the diagnosis came in that Corey had left hemiplegic cerebral palsy, he turned his attention to scaling the F38 world rankings instead.

Corey first appeared on the radar of Australian selectors at the 2019 Australian Athletics Championships in Sydney, NSW, where he set a new world record in the men’s javelin F38 with a mammoth 55.14m throw. This result is even more impressive when you consider the calibre of athletes that Corey was up against – until recently, three of the world’s top five athletes were Australian, including the reigning world champion Jayden Sawyer, who set a world record of his own at the 2017 World Para-athletics Championships in London, England.

Having built quite the reputation for himself, the opportunity for Corey to test it came seven months later at the 2019 World Para-athletics Championships in Dubai, UAE. To his opponents’ dismay, he held firm under pressure – even after rolling his ankle in training two days earlier – and won his maiden world title with a world record-breaking throw of 56.28m.

During his Paralympic debut at Tokyo 2020, Corey sat in the bronze medal position until the sixth and final round of the men’s javelin F38 competition when the Ukraine’s Vladyslav Bilyi stepped up to take silver and push everyone down a spot. He finished in fourth with a top throw of 54.48m.

Off the field, Corey does little else besides Para-athletics. He is, however, studying a Certificate III in Fitness, with a view to becoming a personal trainer.