Amanda Reid


Amanda Reid is an Australian Paralympic swimmer and cyclist. She represented Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in swimming. At the 2016 Summer Paralympics, she won a silver medal in the Women's 500 m Time Trial C1–3.

Personal

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

Career

Swimming

Reid 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 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.
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, Brazil, 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, Milton, Ontario, she won two gold medals - Women's Time Trial C2 and Women's Omnium C2.
In 2016, she is a New South Wales Institute of Sport scholarship holder.

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