Ray Hass is an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n backstroke

Backstroke

The backstroke, also sometimes called the back crawl, is one of the four swimming styles regulated by FINA, and the only regulated style swum on the back. This has the advantage of easy breathing, but the disadvantage of swimmers not being able to see where they are going. It is also the only...

 swimmer

Swimming (sport)

Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...

. Hass immigrated to Australia with his family in 1993, and completed his schooling at Ivanhoe Grammar School

Ivanhoe Grammar School

Ivanhoe Grammar School is an independent, co-educational, day school, located in Ivanhoe and Mernda , both located in the north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....

.

Swimming Career

After swimming the heat of the 4 × 200 freestyle relay at the 2001 World Aquatics Championships

2001 World Aquatics Championships

rightThe 2001 World Aquatics Championships or the 9th FINA World Swimming Championships were held in Fukuoka, Japan between 16 July and 29 July 2001....

 in Fukuoka

Fukuoka, Fukuoka

is the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture and is situated on the northern shore of the island of Kyushu in Japan.Voted number 14 in a 2010 poll of the World's Most Livable Cities, Fukuoka is praised for its green spaces in a metropolitan setting. It is the most populous city in Kyushu, followed by...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Hass was a spectator for the final, when the Australians set a world record of 7:04.66 mins. He went on to swim in the semifinal of the 200 m backstroke finishing 9th. At the 2002 FINA Short Course World Championships

2002 FINA Short Course World Championships

The 6th FINA Short Course World Championships were held in Moscow, Russia from Wednesday April 3 till Sunday April 7, 2002. The event took place in the 25m-pool of the renovated Olympiiski-complex, which also hosted the swimming event at the 1980 Summer Olympics...

, Hass won a gold medal for Australia as part of the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay, swimming alongside compatriots Leon Dunne, Todd Pearson

Todd Pearson

Todd Pearson is an Australian swimming champion, who was born in Geraldton, Western Australia. He started swimming on the advice of a doctor treating his asthma. Pearson was vice captain of Hale School in 1994 where he spent time in Faulkner House And St George House.He is no stranger to the...

 and Grant Hackett

Grant Hackett

Grant Hackett OAM is an Australian former swimmer most famous for winning the men's 1500 metres freestyle race at both the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. This achievement has led him to be regarded as one of the greatest distance swimmers in history...

. Injury sidelined Hass in 2002, and despite representing Australia at the 2003 World Aquatics Championships

2003 World Aquatics Championships

Barcelona, Spain was the host city of the X FINA World Aquatics Championships or the 10th FINA World Championships in Aquatics, which were held from July 12 until July 27, 2003....

 in Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, he never fully regained his earlier form.