page_title: John Maclean (sportsperson)
section_title: Sports career
hierarchical_section_title: John Maclean (sportsperson) / Sports career
caption_attribution_description: English: Action shot of Australian wheelchair racer John Maclean during the 10&#160;km final event at the 2000 Sydney Paralympic Games, Day 03
context_page_description: John Alexander Maclean, OAM is an Australian triathlete, rower, and motivational speaker. A promising rugby league player in his youth, he became a paraplegic after being knocked from his bicycle by a truck in 1988. He subsequently became the first paraplegic to finish the Ironman World Championship and the first to swim the English Channel. Later, he was part of the athletics team at both the Olympics and Paralympics in 2000, and won a silver medal in rowing at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics. In 2014, he completed the Nepean Triathlon without using a wheelchair, after regaining some use of his legs through Ware K Tremor therapy. He is the founder of the John Maclean Foundation, which assists wheelchair users under the age of 18. As a motivational speaker, his clients have included eBay and Pfizer.
context_section_description: In 1994 Maclean completed the Nepean Triathlon for which he had been training before the accident, becoming Australia's first paraplegic triathlete. Inspired by television footage of Jon Franks, a wheelchair competitor at the 1994 Ironman World Championship in Hawaii, he became the first paraplegic to complete the course in 1995. That year, he was also part of the Australia men's national wheelchair basketball team training squad for the 1996 Atlanta Paralympics, but withdrew to concentrate on the World Ironman Championship. He participated in the ironman competition twice more in 1996 and 1997, and became the first paraplegic to complete the course before the cut-off time for able-bodied competitors in the latter year. On 30 August 1998, McLean became the first paraplegic to swim the English Channel, with a time of 12 hours and 55 minutes; an attempt earlier in the month was aborted due to bad weather. The Channel Swimming Association initially refused to recognise his feat, but set up a committee to evaluate "special swims" once they were convinced that he was a serious swimmer. A documentary, Against Wind and Tide, was made about his channel crossing. He was the first man to both swim the English Channel and compete in the Ironman World Championship.
  He participated in the demonstration wheelchair 1500 m event at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, but crashed 1,150 metres (3,770 ft) into the race. He competed as a T54 athlete at that year's Paralympics, where he was part of the Australian team in the 4x400 m relay, reached the semi-final of the 1500 m event, was disqualified in the semi-final of the 5,000 m event after a crash for "obstruction of the track", came ninth in the 10,000 m event, and was the best-placed Australian man in the marathon in his classification, finishing twelfth.
  He participated in the 2001 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race as part of Team Aspect, which came second in its division. In 2006, he took part in the Ultraman endurance challenge in Hawaii. He took up rowing in 2007 and won the male single category in the national championships that year. He was partnered with the winner of the female singles championship, Kathryn Ross, and went on to win silver medals with her at the 2007 Munich World Rowing Championships and the 2008 Beijing Paralympics in the TA2x events. He retired from the sport after the Beijing Paralympics but returned with Ross in 2011, winning a bronze medal at that year's World Rowing Championships in Bled, Slovenia and two gold medals in the 2011 International Adaptive Regatta in Italy. He did not make it to the rowing team for the 2012 London Paralympics because Gavin Bellis was slightly faster than him at the Gavirate International Regatta in Italy in April 2012. In January 2013, he competed in the inaugural sprint-distance Australian Paratriathlon Championships, coming second in the TRI-1 classification behind TRI-1 World Champion Bill Chaffey.
  On 26 October 2014, he completed the Nepean Triathlon without his wheelchair, with the aid of carbon-fibre leg braces and walking poles for the running component, after regaining some use of his legs through Ware K Tremor therapy. He plans to continue competing in running events without using his wheelchair.
caption: Action shot of Maclean during the 10 km final at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics
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