Nathan Jason

Biography

Nathan Jason’s journey in sport and now athletics is most interesting. After representing Australia in swimming he has over the last three years transitioned into track athletics. It has been a significant challenge as he has been required to change his body to cope with a different environment and impacts on his body compared with swimming.

Aged six he started swimming in able-bodied squads and competitions. At 15 he heard about para swimming and in 2018 was selected in the Para Pan Pacs team. Over the next few years he was on the cusp of National team selection.  “For the following few years, I narrowly missed senior teams and kept pushing to keep my dream alive until February of 2022 when Commonwealth Games selection was approaching. I had hit a qualifying time for the team but wasn’t enjoying the sport and thought it would be better for me to step away and start a new chapter. My Dad, already a track sprinting coach, asked if I had ever thought about giving track sprinting a go and ever since then I couldn’t be happier and have never looked back.”

He made a solid start to his athletics career in 2022 clocking best times of 11.76w (100m) and 24.74 (200m) at the National championships.

He started the season chasing a qualifier for the 2025 World Para Athletics Championships. Having never represented Australia in athletics he was eligible to target the newly introduced Athletics Australia developing standard, and for Nathan in the 100m it was 11.70. Starting the season with lifetimes bests of 11.54 and 11.19w, the standard certainly was achievable. The qualifiers flowed with a few 11.6 times, then in February he clocked 11.49 and finally at nationals in Perth he dropped a massive PB of 11.16. The time also lowered the Australian record of 11.20, set by Mark Davies in 1990 – 35 years ago.

About his disability: “I am a Vision impaired athlete with two eye conditions called Cone-Rod Dystrophy and Stargardt. Cone- Rod Dystrophy affects mainly my central and a little bit of my peripheral vision by making everything I see really blurry and sometimes cloudy and Stargardt is essentially blind spots on my eyes. This affects me with everything I see being highly distorted and sometimes not even seen at all with my blind spots. I am also highly sensitive to light which can affect me on the track with staying in my lane, seeing competitors and seeing the finish line. Which has unfortunately been a problem in the past.”

Goals: “It was always my childhood dream to represent Australia at the Paralympics. My older brother was lucky enough to compete at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 as a swimmer. So I have always dreamed of having my own Paralympic journey for myself, which drives me to train as hard and as often as I do so that I can achieve that childhood dream.”

Biggest challenge in athletics: “Has been the body transformation I had to go through. Going from a swimmer my whole life, never doing any sort of running in my life and going straight to racing a 100 and 200m sprint came with a lot of challenges. It’s taken three years of sprint and gym training to get my body moving in the correct ways and for my muscles to be able to take the muscular strain of this sport. It’s then a lot of patience form my end and from my coaches to accept it was going to take time to get to where I want to be and I’ve come out the other side of that now but still have a lot more to learn and grow into.”

Sporting role models: my older brother Braedan who represented Australia at two Paralympic Games. We both grew up with the same vision impairment and same aspirations of representing Australia at the Paralympics. In my short time in athletics I have looked up to Chad Perris. Being similar classification and seeing his career and the level of performance is where I am striving to reach. He has also been a great mentor as a new up and coming VI sprinter and hopefully I can do the same for the next generation.

Influential people in sporting career: My Dad being one of my track coach’s has been amazing, as he knows the way I am as an athlete and a person. So his knowledge of how I respond to things and how I conduct myself in different circumstances has been huge for my running so far. My other sprint coach Nick Bennet and strength and conditioning coach Jarrod Bolton have provided so much knowledge of the sport and how I can be the best sprinter I can possibly be.

Advice to your younger self: “Be patience, trust and be present. Trust in the work you are doing, trust that all good things take time and trust that everything happens for a reason…Hobbies: I am a massive golf fan. Watching and playing golf. It definitely isn’t the most ideal hobby for a Vision impaired person. But as all Para athletes do we learn to adapt and figure out our own way of doing things..Sporting ambition: to represent Australia at a Paralympic games and to stand on the podium wearing the green and gold…Education: Studying a Bachelor of Counselling part time at Uni SC.…Employment:  Sunshine Coast surf club instructor for a community education program – teaching surf awareness and safety.

@ 21 July 2025 David.tarbotton@athletics.org.au