Brendan COREY

NATIONALITY SWITCH
Competed for Canada in his youth, including at the 2016 Junior World Championships, before switching to represent Australia. "My maternal grandparents are dual citizens, Canadian and Australian, and my mother grew up in Australia through grade school. My grandfather was involved in successfully discovering and developing a gold mine in Australia. My mother was attending Macquarie University and she did an exchange to Canada, and that's where she met my father. And then she stayed in Canada and I was then born in Canada."

"I was training with the Canadian national development team when I met Richard (Nizielski, Australian short track Olympian and world champion) at the World Juniors in Montreal in 2019. We began chatting and he said to me that Australia was trying to rebuild the national programme back to how it was in the 1990s, and with my connection to Australia I was thinking this could be a good opportunity. Later in that year, just before Canadian national team selections, I suffered a concussion and was unable to compete for my spot on the Canadian team for the next season. So I thought Australia could be a new, interesting route for me to take. It just seemed like the stars aligned and that I was meant to go down this path."

He spent time living in Australia in 2021. “It was nice to be there, experience the life there. There are a lot of similarities to Canada, so that’s nice and it made the transition a little bit easier. It’s a very beautiful country, nice people, the life outside of skating is enjoyable – and much warmer. Even in the winter, it’s much warmer.” (Australian Ice Racing YouTube, 20 Oct 2021, isu.org, 11 Jan 2022)

CREATING A LEGACY
He says he hopes to raise the profile of short track among Australians by competing in the Olympic Winter Games. “Short track is not a very popular sport in Australia as you can imagine, so they are surprised and most people ask, ‘What is short track?' So I explain it and once I tell them what it is, they say, ‘OK, that’s cool, I’ve seen it on TV at the Olympics before, it’s a really exciting sport.’ Since I was a little boy I’ve always dreamed of being at the Olympics and this is just the next step of me getting there. I’m hoping to rewrite Australia’s name so that we’re not just known for (Australian 2002 Olympic champion) Steven Bradbury.” (isu.org, 11 Jan 2022)

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