Manchester’s aqua arena roared to life from 31 July to 6 August, as elite para swimmers from every corner of the globe converged for the prestigious 2023 World Para Swimming Championships. Amongst this sea of talent and determination were four exceptional athletes from Team NSW: Ricky Betar, Jasmine Greenwood, Tim Hodge, and Ella Jones.
For 22-year-old Tim Hodge, the Championships bore the weight of expectations. But even with his jam-packed schedule – the busiest of all Aussies – and a global record in the 200m Individual Medley (SM9) to defend, which he himself had surpassed three times this year, Hodge didn’t disappoint. He defended his title with gold in the event and etched a new Championship record. Adding to his accolades, Tim secured a silver medal in the 100m butterfly (S9) and a bronze in the 100m backstroke (S9).
Jasmine Greenwood, another powerhouse from Team NSW, embarked on her own journey to glory, culminating in a well-deserved bronze medal in the 100m butterfly (S10).
While not every Mighty Blues athlete claimed a medal, this event will resonate as one of Team Australia’s finest global performances after securing a remarkable sixth place on the medal tally—a feat unrivalled in over a decade.
Two of our Mighty Blues athletes share first-hand accounts of their time in Manchester: Tim Hodge and Ella Jones.
Tim Hodge
My experience at the 2023 Para Swimming World Championships began with the team boarding our flight from Sydney to Dubai. Everyone was feeling excited about the upcoming championships, and our team was quite hopeful of medal-winning results. After our flight to Dubai, we boarded our connection to Paris, where we took a bus to a small town called Chartres, which was where we spent our first 2 weeks for staging camp. During this time, we refined our training, got to know each other better as a team, introduced our new rookies to life away with the team. Everyone was 100 percent focused during this camp, as we knew that this was our last opportunity to put in some hard work before worlds kicked off. We also had the opportunity during this camp to explore Paris and Chartres, and experience being in France.
After staging, we caught a flight over to Manchester and 3 days later, the World Championships began. During the competition, everyone was focused on their own process, whether it’s preparing for a race, resting in between sessions, or cheering on our fellow Aussie’s from the stands. My comp began on day 2 with my 200 IM, where I was going in as World Champion from the previous year. My first heats race of every carnival is always the opportunity to get the nerves out of the way and settle into my performance mentality, and my focus through the heats was just to execute a technically good race. Heading into the finals, the pressure on every athlete was up, and you could see it on everyone’s face in the call room. Everyone was clearly nervous, and athletes would often try to subtly get in the heads of their fellow competitors, as the wait before a big race is always the most mentally challenging time. I was lucky enough to win gold in my 200 IM, and go on to win a silver in the 100 Fly and Bronze in the 100 Backstroke.
During the meet, we all felt the support from our team, whether it was from the cheering in the stands while we raced, or the team debriefing every afternoon where we congratulated the athletes who had won medals the night before or made finals that night.
This year was the Para team’s most successful World Championships in a decade, with a total medal haul of 9 Gold, 7 silver and 14 Bronze.
Ella Jones
Worlds for me was such a special experience, it was my second world championships but after missing out on Tokyo I’ve worked really hard to get back on the Dolphins team and 2023 worlds really signified that for me. I’d worked incredibly hard to get there and I really hope I made Australia proud.
The feeling of putting on the green and gold never gets old, and it remains my favourite feeling. Hearing your name get called along with representing Australia is honestly euphoric. This worlds to me felt different to other international experiences because to get back on the team and back at another worlds I really had to fight back from rock bottom, so Manchester was really special to me.
