John Alexander Maclean, OAM[1] (born 27 May 1966) is an Australian triathlete, rower, and motivational speaker.

[4] His mother, Avril, had schizophrenia,[5] and he was initially raised in foster homes; Avril's social worker wrote in relation to John that his mother "told sister she didn't mind the other children but can't bear the baby, aged 14 months".

[8][10] Inspired by television footage of Jon Franks, a wheelchair competitor at the 1994 Ironman World Championship in Hawaii, he became the first paraplegic to complete the course in 1995.

[8][11][12] That year, he was also part of the Australia men's national wheelchair basketball team training squad for the 1996 Atlanta Paralympics, but withdrew to concentrate on the World Ironman Championship.

[15][16] On 30 August 1998, McLean became the first paraplegic to swim the English Channel, with a time of 12 hours and 55 minutes; an attempt earlier in the month was aborted due to bad weather.

[28] He did not make it to the rowing team for the 2012 London Paralympics because Gavin Bellis was slightly faster than him at the Gavirate International Regatta in Italy in April 2012.

[29][30] In January 2013, he competed in the inaugural sprint-distance Australian Paratriathlon Championships, coming second in the TRI-1 classification behind TRI-1 World Champion Bill Chaffey.

[9][33] Maclean lives in Penrith with his second wife, Amanda (née Roberts) and their son; the couple have been married since 2009.

[43][44] In 2008, he was part of a Gatorade advertisement with such sportspeople as Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Usain Bolt, and Nadia Comăneci, that was first shown in the United States at that year's Super Bowl.