QUT exercise physiology student Lewis Bishop is getting ready for a new year of swimming and study, after a huge 2024 that saw him claim a bronze medal at his first Paralympics.
The 19-year started uni this year on a QUT Elite Sport Scholarship and went on to power his way to the podium in the S9 100m butterfly final at the Paris Games in September.
The scholarship gave him financial breathing space in the lead up to Paris, plus membership of the QUT Elite Athlete Program, which can help athletes negotiate flexible study, assessment and exam options.
Applications are now open for the 2025 Elite Sport Scholarships and Rising Sports Scholarships (including esport), with the university keen to hear from elite athletes before the closing date of January 13.
QUT’s message to them is simple: it doesn’t have to be a choice between being an athlete or a uni student – you can do both.
Lewis is one of four students who this year received new $10,000 QUT Elite Sport Scholarship in partnership with the Queensland Academy of Sport.
Another 10 student-athletes were awarded $10,000 QUT-Australian Institute of Sport Scholarships.
These major scholarships are paid over two years to assist with study, sport and living costs, with other smaller scholarships also available to athletes.
For Lewis, it meant he could pause his part-time work as a lifeguard and focus on his training and study in semester one.
He was also able to defer his studies in semester two so that he could prepare for Paris.
“The reason I chose QUT is because of the sports programs and the scholarship,” Lewis said.
“I feel like that's what's really special about QUT – that they really treat their athletes well.”
Lewis’s bronze medal was more than the 19-year-old had hoped for in this debut Paralympics, but a fitting reward for years of hard training.
“I feel like I was a bit of a wild card, no one really knew how I’d go on my first team – and I only made it onto the team by a fingernail,” he said.
“I achieved my dream of qualifying for the Paralympics and after that I felt like I didn’t have that much pressure on me.
“So I went into that final with a mentality of ‘This is the biggest crowd I've ever seen, I'm going to walk out, soak it all up and swim my own race’. And I managed to do that and just get a medal by .02 of a second.
“I was shocked – it was very, very overwhelming, but it was an incredible high.
“My parents were there and after I finished the race I could see them standing up, hands in the air, bawling their eyes out. That was so special to me.”
Lewis enjoyed a scaled back training program after returning home from Paris, but will get back into serious training in January.
He’s also looking forward to resuming his Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology in February.
“I’m really enjoying it,” he said.
“I feel like my whole life I’ve been doing some kind of sport or some sort of exercise and I knew a few other people who were doing that course.”
In 2025, he will combine part-time study with training for potentially three major meets.
The national championships will be in Brisbane in April, followed in June by the Australian trials for the world championships and, if he makes the team, he’ll be off to Singapore in September.
Lewis lost his right leg in a boating accident in Papua New Guinea when he was just nine years old.
“After I had my accident, I met a Paralympian named Brendan Hall … the physio brought him in to meet me while I was learning to walk again (at the Queensland Children’s Hospital),” he said.
“I saw his gold medal and it lit that spark in me – that one day I could do what he did.
“Before I’d met him, I didn't really know the Paralympics was a thing. So it kind of opened up that pathway and showed me that there was there was something I could do.
“I was a really sporty kid and I’d always wanted to go down that path (competitive swimming) and to lose a leg, you know, you could think it was all over. But to meet Brendan was really special and then it was pretty surreal to be on the same Paralympic team with him and in the same dorm.”
Lewis will be 27 in 2032 and is excited about the prospect of a Paralympics in his home town of Brisbane.
“I'll be on the older side, but I definitely plan on hanging around for them,” he said.
“I've got my eye set on LA at the moment (host of the 2028 Paralympics), so I'm taking it one step at a time and then we'll start to think about Brisbane after that.”
Lewis said his bronze medal in Paris was the result of many people’s support over the years – particularly his parents, Clare and Damon, and his longtime coach Josh Smith.
“My coach has been incredible, he’s been with me since I was about 12 years old,” Lewis said.
“And my parents have been great through the whole journey – super, super supportive.
“When I look at this medal I think of six years of training my butt off, I think of the years that I woke up early, trained really hard.
“It’s been my dream since I had my accident when I was nine years old.
“It means a lot to me, to know that I'll be a medallist for the rest of my life and no one can take that from me … it’s pretty cool.”
Main image at top of page: Lewis Bishop with his bronze medal from the 2024 Paralympic Games.
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