Paralympic champion earns Institute honour

ALMOST 25 years after being crowned Bendigo’s Sports Star of the Year, Tim Matthews OAM keeps racking up accolades.

A champion for the Paralympic movement on and off the track, Matthews earned the Frank Pyke achievement trophy at the Victorian Institute of Sport’s latest awards ceremony.

The Frank Pyke award recognises the recipient’s success on and off the track, court, oval or any other venue, and significant contribution to the Victorian Institute of Sport.

A gun sprinter who first started racing with South Bendigo Athletics Club, Matthews won gold in the 4 x 100m relay for T42-46 class at the 1996 Atlanta Paralympics.

Two years later he was a world champion in the 4 x 400m relay run in Birmingham.

At the Sydney Paralympics in 2000, Matthews struck gold in the 4 x 100m and 4 x 400m relays, and was a bronze medallist in the 100m and 200m.

Those performances earnt gold as Bendigo’s Sports Star of the Year for 2000-01.

The finale to his Paralympic journey was Athens in 2004.

Since his racing days ended, Matthews has played a significant role for Paralympics Australia.

He started as talent search officer for Victoria and Tasmania and has played a role as coach, mentor and facilitator of improving amenities and opportunities for so many in the Paralympic movement.

These days he is the senior performance and talent advisor at Paralympics Australia, and is a member of Athletics Australia’s high-performance committee.

There are 45 sports in the VIS program from which many Olympians, Paralympians and Commonwealth Games representatives started their journey.

Athletes from central Victoria with links to the VIS include cyclists Blake Agnoletto and Alessia McCaig; wheelchair basketball player Shelley Chaplin; and America’s Cup-winning yachtsman Glenn Ashby.

The VIS awards of 2025 included the Sarah Tait Spirit Award being presented to basketballer Sara Blicavs.

A long-time player in the WNBL, Blicavs was a championship-winning player with Bendigo Spirit in 2013-14.

Spirit’s success in the country’s biggest league meant it was the first recipient of the Faith Leech Inspiration Award in Bendigo’s Sports Star of the Year for 2013-14.