Joshua Willmer on his Paralympic Journey

NEWS | MAHI

Written by Henry Lee (he/him) | @henry.lee11 | Contributing Writer

Joshua Willmer has had a passion for swimming for as long as he can remember. And in a couple of months, he’ll be in Paris representing New Zealand at the Paralympics. 

The meaning of hard mahi often comes up when people are talking about work - “do the mahi and get the treats.” To Willmer hard mahi means having to persevere through the challenges of only having one arm while engaging in competitive sport. You won’t hear Josh complain though, probably because he’s underwater, putting in the mahi for the 2024 Paralympic Games.

He’ll be part of the team that heads over to Paris in a couple of months. Willmer will be competing in the 100M SB8 Breaststroke race, the same event that he won gold in at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. He then went on to break New Zealand records at the 2023 World Para Swimming Championships in the 100m SB8 Breaststroke race.

Willmer says his journey to becoming a competitive swimmer began with his childhood, “I actually grew up in Kawakawa Bay so definitely learning to swim was a must, which probably led me to swim but I loved swimming from a young age. I’ve played other sports as a kid, I always wanted to play Rugby League as a kid but ended up playing touch and other sports growing up”. 

“Mum always took me to swim programs to learn how to swim because she said we are surrounded by water so you have to learn to swim. By doing swimming lessons and moving up in each group I ended up doing squad swimming at my local swim club”.

Willmer’s life today consists of a gruelling training schedule, “my weekly schedule is really busy at the moment, so my day consists of training early in the morning and then training again in the afternoon”. Josh explains that being a paralympic athlete has extra, unique challenges, “being different from everyone else, you kinda have to adapt to certain things at training and some things are easy, and some things take longer to learn”. Josh aims to make sure his balance between swimming and life stays just right and takes every opportunity given to him. 

When asked what the word “mahi” means to him, Josh says “mahi means putting in effort because it goes a long way in our sport by just putting that little bit more effort in, and hopefully at the end of the set, we will get the treats.” 

This attitude is paying off - Willmer’s record time for 100m Breaststroke is 1 minute and 14 seconds. 6 seconds off the Paralympic world record for this event, held by Ukraine’s Andriy Kalyna. Willmer recently broke three New Zealand records at the 2023 Para World Championships in Manchester, England. Joshua swam his first 50m of the SB8 100m heat with a time of 34.79 seconds, before breaking that same record in the final, swimming 34.62 seconds.

There’s no doubt that come August, Josh will do New Zealand proud at his first Paralympic Games in Paris. His determination and commitment to achieving his goals will inspire many future New Zealand Olympians and Paralympians, showcasing that obstacles can be conquered in the true kiwi “do the mahi gets the treats” spirit.

Joshua posts updates about his swimming career on his Instagram @joshua_willmer.