Michael Milton is Australia’s most successful Winter Paralympian. His four gold medal haul at the Salt Lake Winter Paralympic Games endeared him to a sport-loving nation and earned him the title of Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability.

In April 2003 Michael tried something new: speed skiing, the drag racing of alpine sport. On the steepest slope in the world he clocked over 193km/hr, smashing a 16 year old world record and becoming the fastest skier with a disability. Every year after that he bettered his own world record until, in April 2006, he clocked a staggering 213.65km/hr to also become the fastest Australian skier ever.

A month earlier at the 2006 Winter Paralympic Games (in his fifth Paralympic Games) Michael’s ski racing career came to an end. Under a new, tougher classification system, he won a silver medal in the Downhill, achieving his goal to “…win a medal, any colour.” His ski racing medal count stands at eleven Paralympic medals (six gold) and eleven World Championships medals (six gold).

Michael then pursued a new sport: cycling. After six months of intense training, he not only won a gold medal in the 3000m Individual Pursuit at the Australian Track Cycling Championships in February 2007 but also broke the Australian record.

His dream to make the Australian team and compete at the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games was sidelined when he was diagnosed with Oesophagael Cancer in 2017. He then made an amazing comeback from this serious illness to record times at the 2008 Australian Track Cycling Championships comparable to his results in the same events 12 months before.

In June 2008 Michael was named as one of 18 athletes in the Paralympic Cycling Team to compete in Beijing. His sixth Paralympic Games and his first as a summer athlete, he arrived in Beijing less than 12 months since chemotherapy radiotherapy and major surgery. In many ways, he’d already won. Michael competed in three events – the 1km Time Trial and the 300m Individual Pursuit on the track and the 60.5km Road Race.