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  • 21 Aug, 2019

  • By, Wikipedia

Amanda Reid
Amanda Reid OAM (formerly Amanda Fowler; 12 November 1996) is an Australian Paralympic swimmer, cyclist and snowboarder. She represented Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in swimming. At the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics, she won a silver medal in the Women's 500 m Time Trial C1–3 and at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics a gold medal in the 500 m Time Trial C1–3. In 2023, she won a gold medal at the 2023 World Para Snowboard Championships.

Personal

Reid was born on 12 November 1996 with spastic quadriplegia and an intellectual disability. She is from the Blue Mountains town of Blaxland in New South Wales. She has heritage from the Wemba-Wemba and Guringai people. She attended Blaxland High School and Endeavour Sports High School.

Career

Speed skating

At around the age of nine she won national titles in able-bodied short-track speed skating competitions, becoming the first person to win Australian, New Zealand, and all-Australian state titles for her age in one year.

Swimming

Fowler swimming at the 2011 Oceania Paralympic Championships

Reid (who competed as Amanda Fowler) was an S14 classified swimmer. She was classified as an S8 swimmer for the 2015 New South Wales Multi-Class Championships. She was a member of Woy Woy Swim club. At the 2010 Australian All Schools Swimming Championships, she won ten medals, eight of which were gold. She competed at the 2011 Global Games as a fourteen-year-old. She was selected to represent Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in swimming competing in the S14 100-metre breaststroke event.

Cycling

After the 2012 London Paralympics, she changed her surname to Reid and transferred to cycling. At her first major international competition, she won a silver medal in the Women's C2 500 m Time Trial at the 2016 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Montichiari, Italy.

At the 2016 Summer Paralympics, she won a silver medal in the Women's 500 m Time Trial C1–3. Her other results were 11th in both the Women's Road Time trial C1–3 and Women's Road Race C1-3.

In 2016, she was a New South Wales Institute of Sport scholarship holder.

At the 2017 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Los Angeles, Reid won gold medals in the Women's 500 m Time Trial C2 and Women's 3 km Individual Pursuit C2 and a silver medal in the Women's Scratch Race C1–3.

At the 2018 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Rio de Janeiro, she won the silver medal in the Women's 500 m Time Trial C2.

At the 2019 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, Reid won the gold medal in the Women's 500 m Time Trial C2 in a new world record time of 39.505 seconds and a silver medal in the Women's Scratch Race C1–C2.

At the 2020 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Milton, Ontario, she won two gold medals – Women's Time Trial C2 and Women's Omnium C2.

Reid won her first Paralympic gold medal in the Women's 500 m Time Trial C1-3 at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics in a world record time of 35.581. She also competed in the Mixed team sprint C1-5 together with Meg Lemon and Gordon Allan. The team came ninth.

At the 2022 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Baie-Comeau, Reid finished fourth in The Women's Time Trial C2 and did not finish the Women's Road Race C2.

At the 2022 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France, she won the gold medals in the Women's Time Trial C2, Women's Omnium C2, and Women's Scratch Race C2, along with a silver medal in the Women's Individual Pursuit C2. At the 2023 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, she won the gold medals in the 500 m Time Trial C2 and the Omnium C2, a silver medal in the Scratch Race C2, and a bronze medal in the Women's Individual Pursuit C2.

At the 2024 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Rio de Janeiro, she won gold medals in the 500 m time trial C2 (her fifth win in a row in this event at the championships) and the scratch race C1–C2.

Snowboarding

Reid won the gold medal in the Women's Snowboard Cross SB-LL1 and the bronze medal in the Women's Snowboard Dual Banked SB-LL1 at the 2023 World Para Snowboard Championships held at La Molina.

Controversy

In 2018, it was reported that Reid's former coach Simon Watkins accused her of exaggerating her physical and intellectual conditions and symptoms. The Australian Paralympic Committee dismissed these allegations, describing them as "opinion" by a non-medical professional, saying that she had been through "rigorous assessment processes" and that it was "not uncommon to change classifications".

Recognition