William Martin OAM (swimming) won his maiden Australian para swimming title in 2022 and made his Commonwealth Games debut in the 100m butterfly S9 several months later in Birmingham.

After an impressive performance at the 2019 Australian Para Swimming Championships, William was selected for the World Para Swimming Championships in London where his fifth placing in the men’s 100m butterfly S9 was his best effort. A world record in the 100m butterfly S9 at the selection trials punched his ticket to Tokyo 2020 Paralympics where he came away with three gold and a silver medal, again breaking his own 100m butterfly world mark and setting another as part of the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay 34-points. He won two medals – silver in the 100m butterfly S9 and bronze in the 100m freestyle S9 – at his second world championships in Madeira in 2022.

William suffered a stroke when he was six resulting in vision impairment and hand tremors. He took up swimming as a form of rehabilitation and was classified as an S9 swimmer after taking up the sport competitively in 2010.

The Rockhampton-born swimmer has worked as a learn-to-swim teacher at his former school Nudgee College in Brisbane and is undertaking an urban planning degree at the Queensland University of Technology.