Kerri-Anne Connor

Kerri-Anne Weston (née Connor) (born 3 April 1963) is an Australian swimmer with paraplegia who won five medals at the 1984 New York/Stoke Mandeville Paralympics.

Personal Connor was born on 3 April 1963 in the Atherton Tableland, as the eldest of three children. Her father ran a contract drainage company, which her mother, formerly a teacher, worked for. She lived in Townsville until she was ten, when she moved with her parents to the Gold Coast. She won a gold medal in the under 7's 50 m backstroke.

She has been married to Grant since 1986.

Competitive career Connor began training in swimming for the National Wheelchair Games in 1981, and won five gold medals at her first national competition. After she returned she received many awards in both disabled and able-bodied competitions including Sports Australia's Female Athlete of the Year and National Caltex-Berlei Disabled Athlete of the Year, and two awards from the Sporting Wheelies and Disabled Association, Queensland's Sporting Wheelie of the Year and Most Improved Athlete of the Year. She was disappointed by her performance at the 1983 World Wheelchair Games, where she did not win a gold medal.

Before the 1984 New York/Stoke Mandeville Games, she took up the Pritikin Diet to lose weight. The diet caused a vitamin deficiency which put her position in the Paralympic swim team in doubt, and meant that she required constant medical attention at the games.

She then retired from swimming and took up wheelchair basketball. No other women were playing the sport in Queensland, so she joined the state men's team. She later played for the Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team, and was planning to be part of the team for the first women's Wheelchair Basketball World Championship in 1990. She then changed her mind after discovering that she was expecting her first child, who was born in May 1989.

Recognition Connor was named the 1982 Junior Athlete of the Year in the Australian Sport Awards. In 1999 she was Inducted into the Gold Coast Sporting Hall of Fame.