For nearly two decades, five-time Paralympian Brad Ness has proven time and again why he is on track to be recognised among the world’s greatest ever wheelchair basketball players.
After a boating accident at 18 severed his right leg below the knee, Brad was encouraged to give wheelchair basketball a go by Bill Mather-Brown, an Australian representative from the first Paralympic Games in Rome, Italy, in 1960.
Soon after, Brad made his Paralympic debut at the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games, where the Australian men’s wheelchair basketball team, the Rollers, endured a crushing 62-52 defeat in the quarter-finals.
A silver medal at the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games followed, before, at long last, Brad captained the Rollers to a 12-point victory over Canada in the gold medal match at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games.
On a ‘Roll’, Brad won his first world title at the 2010 IWBF World Wheelchair Basketball Championships in Birmingham, England, which was followed by an unbeaten run to the finals at the London 2012 Paralympic Games, where the Rollers won a silver medal.
A second world title in 2014 all but confirmed the Rollers were the team to beat at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. But it was not to be, and a 23-point loss to Great Britain in the quarter-finals drew their campaign to a close.
In all likelihood, this was Brad’s last Paralympic Games as an athlete, and he was fittingly chosen to represent Australia as flag bearer at the Opening Ceremony.
“I thought I had experienced every emotion from winning gold to losing finals, to not qualifying for medal rounds, so to have this now happen is really hard to describe. It’s special; it’s such an honour,” Brad said at the time.
In 2017, Brad was appointed assistant coach of the Rollers, and in 2018, he set to work as head coach of the Western Australian Institute of Sport’s wheelchair basketball program.
Off the court, he manages a pizzeria with his wife in Fremantle, Western Australia, and is the Manager, Business Development and Partnerships at Outback Academy Australia.
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