Hometown: Derry
Coach:
Classification: T13
Disability Group: Vision Impaired
Jason is the fastest Paralympian of all-time and still holds the World and Paralympic records in T13 100m (10:46) and 200m (21.05), which he set at the London Paralympics in 2012.
He won double T13 sprint gold on his Paralympic debut in Beijing 2008, retained them in London and in Rio, with the T13 200m removed from the programme, still dominated the 100m , leaving him chasing a sixth crown in Tokyo in his fourth Paralympic Games.
Jason competes in T13 because he has Stargardt’s disease, which affects his central vision.
His 10:22 time from 2011 also makes him the second fastest Irishman of all-time. That was just four hundredths of a second outside Olympic qualification, thwarting his ambition to compete in both the Olympics and Paralympics. In 2010 he was the first Para athlete to compete in the European (able-bodied) Championships where he narrowly missed making the final.
On top of his five Paralympic titles Jason has also won eight World Championship golds, six European titles and a World Indoor 60m crown in 2006.
Since Rio 2016 he has won the European title in 2018 and the World title in 2019. His chance to compete internationally in the past two seasons has been badly restricted by COVID-19 but, on August 8, he noticeably ran a season best of 10.63 at the Northern Ireland Championships, just 100th of a second slower than his fastest time in Rio 2016.
Since May 2016 Jason has been based back in Northern Ireland where he lives outside Belfast with his wife Elise and two daughters Evie (5) and Lottie (3).
Tokyo 2021 Results:
Jason won his 6th Paralympic gold medal in the 100m T13 in a time of 10.53 seconds.
