James Turner (parathlete)

James Michael Turner   (born 22 May 1996) is an Australian Paralympic athlete and soccer player with cerebral palsy. He has represented Australia as part of the  Australia Paralympic soccer team, the ParaRoos, and was its player of the year in 2013. At the 2016 Summer Paralympics, he won the Men's 800 m T36 in a world record time of 2:02.39. At the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships in London, England, he won three gold medals  and followed this up with two gold medals at the  2019 World Para Athletics Championships in Dubai.

Personal
James Turner was born on 22 May 1996. He has cerebral palsy. He grew up in Diamond Beach, New South Wales. In 2015, he commenced a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wollongong.

Football
Turner played 7-a-side soccer as a midfielder for New South Wales starting in 2009, and for the Australian national 7-a-side team, the ParaRoos, in 2012. By November 2013, he had 16 caps, and was named Pararoo Football Player of the Year at the 2013 FFA Australian Football Awards night on 13 November 2013. The head coach of the ParaRoos, Paul Brown, said that "James has pace to burn and he gets forward on the overlap to worry defenders in their third. He has the potential to be one of the best players that Australia has ever produced if he stays on the path that he is at present". Unfortunately for the ParaRoos, ranked tenth in the world, in July 2014, the Australian Sports Commission cut funding for the 7-a-side soccer program on the grounds that the team was unlikely to make the 2016 Summer Paralympics. After a public outcry, the team was revived with a new funding model in 2015. Despite the fund raising efforts, the ParaRoos failed to qualify for Rio.

Athletics
Turner started with Forster-Tuncurry Athletics club as an eight-year-old and at the age of 15 joined the Hunter Academy of Sport  AWD middle distance running program. In 2015, Turner turned his talents to back athletics on the encouragement of Athletics Australia, where he is classified as a T36 athlete. He was coached first by Marie Kay and from 2016 by Brett Robinson  in Wollongong, New South Wales. At the Australian Athletics Championships in March 2016, he ran the 800m in 2:08.90, which was a Paralympic qualifier. In the IPC Grand Prix in Canberra February, he had posted an even faster time of 2.08.8. In August 2016, it was announced that had been selected to represent Australia at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro in the 800m event. He was ranked number two in the world in this event in his classification.

At the 2016 Summer Paralympics, he won the Men's 800 m T36 in a world record time of 2:02.39. In December 2016, he was named Australian Paralympic Rookie of the Year.

At the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships in London, England,  Turner won three gold medals - Men's 200 m T36 (world record time 24.09 (-0.4)),Men's 400 m T36 and Men's 800 m T46.

His Rio Paralympics gold medal event the 800m is not on the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics as a result he has changed to short distances - 100m, 200 m and 400 m.

At the 2019 World Para Athletics Championships in Dubai, he ran 11.72 and broke the world record in winning the Men's 100 m T36 and followed up with gold in the Men's 400 m T46 in a world record time of 51.71. 

In 2019, he is coached by Iryna Dvoskina in Canberra.

Recognition
 2016 - Awarded Athletics Australia 2016 Male Para-athlete of the Year.
 2017 - Awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 2017.
 2017 - Awarded Athletics Australia 2076 Male Para-athlete of the Year.

References

External links
 James Turner at the Australian Paralympic Committee
 
 

Category:Paralympic athletes of Australia
Category:Athletes (track and field) at the 2016 Summer Paralympics
Category:Paralympic gold medalists for Australia
Category:Medalists at the 2016 Summer Paralympics
Category:Living people
Category:1996 births
Category:Recipients of the Medal of the Order of Australia
Category:World record holders in Paralympic athletics