Liam Bekric and Ben Hinks win Messenger School Sports Awards
VISION impaired swimmer Liam Bekric and national junior sailing champion Ben Hinks have been crowned Messenger Community News’s School Sports Awards winners for 2016.
LIAM Bekric started the year with pneumonia and little expectations for what he might be able to achieve in the pool.
But the Norwood Swimming Club member will end 2016 as a Paralympian and the winner of the secondary category of Messenger Community News’s School Sports Awards.
Bekric, 15, received the honour last week after finishing fourth in the S13 100m breaststroke final at the Rio Games in September.
“Rio was not actually likely at the beginning of the year because I was sick with pneumonia and out of the pool for all of December and January,” Bekric, of West Croydon, says.
“I was astonished to even be named on the (Paralympic) team.
“Rio was amazing and I was super happy to come fourth in a final at 15.
“Now coming back and winning awards, it’s too good to be true.”
Bekric was seven when he learnt he had retinitis pigmentosa, a hereditary eye condition that resulted in tunnel vision.
He started swimming competitively at 10 because he was told to steer clear of contact sport.
“Swimming was the perfect way to have a lane to myself and not worry about getting hit or injuring myself.”
Bekric says being in Brazil, where he also swam heats in three other events, was a great experience.
“It’s not everyday you get to walk around for a couple of weeks with the world’s best in every other sport, be dining with them and staying with them.”
Bekric, a Year 10 student at Underdale High, says coming so close to a medal makes him hungrier as he looks ahead to the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
“You hear about other people’s medal stories and there’s always people with medals coming home and all the attention so you kind of want to be part of that little group.
“It makes you train that little bit harder and makes you a bit more motivated.”
Sailing to success
BEN Hinks first experienced the open water sailing with his dad, Martin, in a keelboat aged seven.
Now he is a four-time national sailing champion and the winner of a Messenger School Sports Award.
“I’ve always liked the freedom of sailing around on the water,” Hinks, of Flagstaff Hill, says.
“Winning the award was really exciting.”
Ben, 12, took out the primary school category at the SA Sport Awards at Adelaide Oval last Friday night.
It capped a whirlwind 12 months for the Adelaide Sailing Club member, who represented Australia at the Optimist European Championship in Crotone, Italy, in July.
Ben says finishing eighth in the boy’s bronze fleet in his first international competition is the highlight of his young career.
“It was a lot tougher over there,” says Ben, who will defend his national junior title in Adelaide in January.
Australia won four sailing medals at this year’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Ben, a Year 6 Craigburn Primary student, says emulating his heroes is his dream.
“I’d like to be like them one day.”