Bunbury Bullet Alex Saffy opens up on tough journey to para swimming glory as he reflects on breakout year

If there’s nothing you can do about it, then you just get on with it. It’s a motto Bunbury Bullet Alex Saffy has stood by throughout his remarkable journey to becoming one of the world’s fastest para swimmers — and one that has paid off with a career-defining year full of grand achievements and bucket list moments. A breakout 2022 saw the 17-year-old win a Commonwealth Games silver medal in Birmingham, just weeks after claiming bronze at the World Para Swimming Championships. The young athlete’s major feats propelled him up the global rankings and culminated in him taking home four Swimming WA Awards this month. It was an unprecedented year for the butterfly specialist — but things haven’t always gone swimmingly for the rising star, who has been thrown in the deep end time and time again. Saffy was diagnosed with dyskinetic cerebral palsy at age 12 and found himself being disqualified from able-bodied meets in the years that followed, prompting him to make the shift to para competition. The move immediately ruled him out of his preferred open water swimming, a category that is not currently open to para athletes. And although his sprint race times automatically made him one of the world’s best para swimmers, Saffy was faced with a frustratingly long wait to gain international classification as a para swimmer — a delay that was so long he missed the cutoff for last year’s Tokyo Olympics, only being granted the credential in February. But it was the constant setbacks that Saffy said made this year’s international medal wins all the more sweeter. “Applying for para swimming was a long process for me and I missed Tokyo in 2021 because of it,” he said. “You can’t do much about those things, you just have to move on unfortunately. “I was also pretty keen on pursuing open water swimming, unfortunately they don’t do that for para so that’s a no now. “Now I have to stick to sprint races, which I wasn’t too keen on and wasn’t a fan of, but now that I’ve actually been training sprints, I’m enjoying it, it’s a lot more interesting, fun and intense.” Saffy’s bronze medal in the men’s 100m butterfly S10 at the World Para Swimming Championships in Portugal and silver in the same event at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham just weeks later were among the year’s highlights for the star. His hard work was rewarded with four Swimming WA Awards last week, which included the Elizabeth Edmondson Swimmer of the Year Award for the best para competitor and the peer voted Swimmers’ Swimmer of the Year prize. But Saffy said his single best moment of 2022 was standing on the podium at the Commonwealth Games and making eye contact with his parents Deborah and Steven for the first time in months. “It was amazing, I hadn’t seen them for a few months and I hopped on the podium and I was looking out for them and I saw them in the stands,” he said. “We weren’t allowed to see them at the games (because of COVID) so that was the first time I had actually seen them for a few months, I remember it really well.” Saffy, who is a Wally Foreman Scholarship holder, relocated to Canberra at the start of the year, where he is training at the Australian Institute of Sport. To stay at global standard, Saffy spends 14 hours a week in the pool across six days, on top of five gym and pilates sessions. He said the workload certainly took its toll, but he enjoyed being in a good routine and, in his own words, “grinding”. “It’s pretty hectic, but it’s rewarding, it’s been good,” he said. “I have a lot of support over here, a lot of access to some great resources, it’s been a very beneficial move for me and was the right decision to come here.” Saffy said it had become difficult to balance the “normal” life of a teenager, but it was worth it to achieve his goals. “I just turned 17 so don’t really have much of a life, I definitely don’t have much time,” he said. “It’s honestly quite sad, but I like just being by myself sometimes and just thinking about what will better me in the long run. “You don’t really need parties and things like that, I like the grind, it’s good. “When I get free time, I pretty much just play Playstation — I’m pretty stuffed, so I just like to stay inside, I don’t really have the energy to do much else to be honest.” The motivated youngster has now turned his attention to the 2024 Paris Olympics, where he hopes to do one better and take out the gold. “The long-term goal is to get the gold medal there, so we will see what happens,” he said. “After a short break, I’m getting back into it, last week was my first full week back into training. “Now I’m back fully in the water, I’m looking at Worlds for next year in the UK and I will be in Europe for a month prior for training, which is exciting.” Saffy said he was thankful to the South West Academy of Sport and WA Institute of Sport for their ongoing support, as well as the South West community, who cheered him on all year.