TIMOTHY IS PUSHING THE LIMITS OF PERCEPTION
TIMOTHY Lachlan made history as the first Australian to land a wheelchair backflip and now he wants others to embrace the action sport of Wheelchair Motocross.
A combination of low muscle tone and joint issues means Mr Lachlan has used crutches and a wheelchair from the age of 14.
Now the 21-year-old from Labrador travels the world to showcase his skills.But he insists the nerves that come with his death-defying stunts and extreme skating are “all part of the fun”.
“I think for me I’m more scared of doing a 3.5m drop than I am of doing a backflip, because with the drop I know it’s going to hurt a lot more if you stack it at the top,” he said.
“It’s always just trying to push past that fear because it seems like your body is trying to hold you back, you have to mentally push yourself through it.”
In between studying for a degree in occupational therapy Mr Lachlan is now preparing to launch his notfor-profit organisation, WCMX and Adaptive Skate Australia. It will host skating workshops and demonstations for people with disabilities around Australia, starting on the Central Coast next week.
“The main goal is to get people with disabilities into skate parks,” he said.
“Wheelchair skating has a lot of transferable skills for mobility, it lets me go up and down stairs, kerbs, stuff you generally don’t think wheelchairs can do.
“So I want it to be not just a sport but something that improves people’s lives.”
Mr Lachlan said the most important thing was changing the way the community views wheelchair users and other disabilities.
“At the moment in society either people in wheelchairs are something to be looked at like they’re odd or different ... or people that are able-bodied tend to look at people with disabilities for inspiration to make themselves feel better,” he said.
“I’m aiming to make it so people with disabilities are seen as equal and it’s not so much that pity going on, it’s more ‘look at what you can do, it’s great that you can do that’.”