| Brant Garvey | |
| Headercolor: | green |
| Textcolor: | yellow |
| Nationality: | Australian |
| Birth Date: | 9 January 1985 |
| Birth Place: | Darwin, Northern Territory |
| Club: | Exceed Triathlon Club |
Brant Garvey (born 9 January 1985) is an Australian leg amputee paratriathlete. He represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics when paratriathlon made its debut at the Paralympics.[1]
Garvey was born on 9 January 1985 in Darwin, Northern Territory.[2] He is a congenital above the knee amputee. His sister was diagnosed with three types of cancer at the age of fourteen and this has inspired Garvey to accept sporting challenges.[2] [3] He lives in Perth, Western Australia. He is the founder of noXcuses, an Australian apparel company for triathletes and fitness enthusiasts. Garvey is married to Natalie.[4]
Prior to taking up paratriathlon, Garvey was a successful swimmer and wheelchair basketballer.[2] He competed in wheelchair basketball for Australia at the 2002 FESPIC Games held in Korea.[2] He was a member of the Perth Wheelcats that won five Australian Wheelchair Basketball Championships and has played professional wheelchair basketball in Spain for two years.[2] He has completed Rottnest Channel Swim five times.[2]
At the age of twenty-eight, he decided to try and run for the first time using a prosthetic leg and his first event was the HBF Run for a Reason over 12 km.[3] In 2013, he completed an ironman triathlon consisting of a 3.8 km swim, a 180 km bike ride and a 42.2 km marathon run. He finished in a time of 11:49:20 and became the first Australian above-knee amputee to complete an ironman triathlon.[3]
Garvey is classified as a PT2 paratriathlete. Garvey's first major international event was the 2013 ITU Grand Final in London where he finished sixth.[5] In 2016, he qualified Australia a quota place in the 2016 Rio Paralympics by finishing second at International Triathlon Union event on the Gold Coast, Queensland.[6] In May, 2016, he finished second in the Yokohama ITU World Paratriathlon PT2 Event.[6] In 2016, he is a Western Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder and coached by Ross Pedlow.[6]
In 2016, he was awarded the Western Australian Institute of Sport Personal Excellence Award for his efforts in setting up and flourishing personal branding business, titled noXcuses.[7]
In 2016, Garvey competed in the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games and placed 10th in the Men's PT2 event. Reflecting on his performance, Garvey states "I was in excruciating pain, dropped a few swear words, lucky they (the Brazilian fans) don't speak English as a first language. I didn't think I was going to be able to run but managed to get into a bit of a rhythm and finished my first Paralympic Games."[10]