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Dunn into national youth award finals

By Col Allison, The Age, 18 December 1997

MATTHEW Dunn, of Wahroonga, the 23-year-old swimming sensation, has won the NSW finals of the 1997 Young Australian of the Year Sports Award.

The award, sponsored by Abigroup Limited, caps an extraordinary year for Matthew, who goes into the national finals of the Young Australian of the Year Awards, to be announced on January 22 at the Great Hall in Parliament House, Canberra.

Last April, in Sweden, he was voted `Male Swimmer of the Championships' at the 1997 World Short Course Swimming Championships after winning three gold medals - in the 200 m individual medley, 400 m individual medley and 4x200 m freestyle relay (in world-record time).

In August, in Japan, he won two gold medals in the Pan Pacific Championships in the 200 m individual medley event and the 400 m individual medley (in Commonwealth Record time).

Abigroup's general manager for NSW, Mr Peter Brecht, presented Dunn with his award in Sydney on December 4. The ceremony of finalists included Troy Sachs, 21, one of the best wheelchair basketballers in the world; and Liz Ellis, 24, a netball player who has representedAustralia on many occasions.

Abigroup Limited, the wholly owned and operated Australian construction company that spearheaded the M2 Motorway project, has sponsored the awards for the past five years.

Abi is currently building and will own and operate the $280 million multi-use arena at Homebush Bay, which will house the Olympics 2000 indoor sports, including basketball and gymnastics. It will be serviced by a 3,500-space car park, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.

Dunn, who was born in Leeton, was nominated for achieving outstanding success in swimming while facing the continued adversity of chronic asthma.

He has so far set 47 Australian and Australian All Comers records, six Commonwealth records and one world record, but was diagnosed as a chronic asthmatic at the age of three.

During his childhood he spent many days in an oxygen tent at Leeton Hospital, where he was advised to take up swimming to assist in exercising his lungs.

Almost by default, he became involved in competitive swimming, winning his first medal, a silver, at age 11 in the 50 m freestyle event of the NSW Primary School Championships in Sydney. The rest, as they say, is history.