Michael Norton grew up on a dairy farm in Leongatha, VIC. When he was 19, coming home from work on his motorbike, he was involved in a road accident which left him paralysed. 

His first involvement with para-sports was in athletics. In 1986 he won a national title for wheelchair racing at the Australian Championships in Adelaide. He later took up para-alpine skiing, training under sit-skiing pioneer George MacPherson and coach Dean Sheppard, who in 1988 invited Norton to train in Canada to develop his racing talent. 

His first major international competition was the 1990 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships in Winter Park, Colorado. Two years later, he was selected to represent Australia at the 1992 Tignes-Albertville Paralympic Winter Games, where he won a bronze medal in the Men’s Slalom event, competing in the LW11 category.

In 1994 he became the second Australian skier after Michael Milton to win Gold at the Winter Paralympics, taking home the Slalom and Super-G titles in the LWXI category at the Lillehammer Games. 

For his Paralympic success, in 1995 he was awarded an Order of Australia. 

Norton was a strong advocate for equality in sports for people with a disability. He appeared on television several times to raise the profile of Paralympic sports and fundraise to purchase specialised equipment, a cause for which he also pushed his wheelchair from Melbourne to Mt Buller.

Norton also established a para-ski school at Mt Buller, teaching Australian wheelchair tennis champion Daniela Di Toro, amongst others.

Former Australian team Paralympic Chef-de-Mission Nick Dean said that in his opinion “Michael Norton might have been the best [para] athlete in the world at the time, by far and away. He was extraordinary.”

Norton tragically passed away on 22 August 1996 in his home in Melbourne.