| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Born | 1981/82 Kumasi, Ghana | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Athletics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Anita Fordjour (born 1981/82) [1] is a Ghanaian athlete, who has competed in wheelchair racing. She came third in the 1500 metres T54 event at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, and has won multiple medals at the All-Africa Games.
Fordjour is from Kumasi, Ghana. She has two children. At the age of six, Fordjour contracted polio, and lost movement in her legs. [2]
At the age of 20, Fordjour took up wheelchair basketball, before switching to wheelchair racing. [2] In 2003, Fordjour won the 800 metres event at the Ghana-Nigeria Friendly Games for the Physically Challenged in Kumasi. She finished second in the 200 metres and 1500 metres event. [1] At the 2007 All-Africa Games in Algiers, Algeria, Fordjour came second in the 1,500 metres race, and third in the 200 metres race. [1] In 2008, Fordjour won the 400 metres race at the Athletics competition for the Physically Challenged at the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi. [3]
Fordjour competed at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, where she finished third in the 1500 metres T54 event, in a time of 4:18.83. [4] Fordjour won a bronze medal in the 1,500 metres event at the 2011 All-Africa Games. [5] Fordjour competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in the 100 metres T53 and 200 metres T53 events. She was one of four Ghanaians at the Games, the most athletes Ghana had ever sent to a Paralympic Games at the time. [6] Fordjour finished seventh in both the 100 metres T53 and 200 metres T53 events. [2] At the 2014 Commonwealth Games, Fordjour finished eighth in the 1500 metres T54 event, in a personal best time of 4:11.29. [7]
In 2010, Fordjour was named Ghana Female Athlete of the Year by the Sport Writers Association of Ghana. [2]
Kurt Harry Fearnley, is an Australian wheelchair racer, who has won gold medals at the Paralympic Games and crawled the Kokoda Track without a wheelchair. He has a congenital disorder called sacral agenesis which prevented fetal development of certain parts of his lower spine and all of his sacrum. In Paralympic events he is classified in the T54 classification. He focuses on long and middle-distance wheelchair races, and has also won medals in sprint relays. He participated in the 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 Summer Paralympic Games, finishing his Paralympic Games career with thirteen medals. He won a gold and silver medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and was the Australian flag bearer at the closing ceremony.
Eliza Ault-Connell, is an Australian wheelchair racer, who competed at Paralympic and Olympic Games. She survived meningococcal disease and plays a major role in improving the Australian community's awareness of the disease.
Alix Louise Sauvage, OAM is an Australian paralympic wheelchair racer and leading coach.
Christie Dawes is an Australian Paralympic wheelchair racing athlete. She has won three medals in athletics at seven Paralympics from 1996 to 2021.
Rochelle "Shelly" Woods is an elite British Paralympic athlete from the suburb of Layton in Blackpool, Lancashire. Woods is a T54 athlete who competes as a wheelchair racer in medium and long-distance events. She has competed in two Paralympic Games, Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012, where she won three medals. She is also a world-class marathon athlete, winning the women's elite wheelchair race at the 2007 and 2012 London Marathon.
Jean Driscoll is an American wheelchair racer. She won the women's wheelchair division of the Boston Marathon eight times, more than any other female athlete in any division. Her wins in Boston included seven consecutive first-place finishes from 1990 to 1996. Driscoll participated in four Summer Paralympic Games, winning a total of five gold, three silver, and four bronze medals in events ranging from 200 meters to the marathon.
Richard Andrew Colman is an Australian Paralympic athlete, competing mainly in category T53 sprint events. He was born with spina bifida. He represented Australia at the four Paralympics - 2004 to 2016.
Tatyana McFadden is an American Paralympic athlete of Russian descent competing in the category T54. McFadden has won twenty Paralympic medals in multiple Summer Paralympic Games.
El Salvador first competed in the Paralympic Games at the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney, Australia. It has participated in the Summer Paralympic Games every four years since that time. El Salvador has never taken part in the Winter Paralympics, and until Tokyo 2020, no Salvadorian had won a Paralympic medal. In 2021, Herbert Aceituno became the first athlete to win a medal, earning bronze in powerlifting at the 59 kg category.
Madison de Rozario, is an Australian Paralympic athlete and wheelchair racer who specialises in middle and long-distance events. She competed at the 2008 Beijing, 2012 London, 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo Summer Paralympics, winning two gold medals, three silver and a bronze. She has also won ten medals at the World Para Athletics Championships and four gold at the Commonwealth Games. De Rozario holds the world record in the Women's 800m T53 and formerly in the Women's 1500m T53/54.
Angela Ballard is an Australian Paralympic athlete who competes in T53 wheelchair sprint events. She became a paraplegic at age 7 due to a car accident.
Marcel Eric Hug is a Paralympian athlete from Switzerland competing in category T54 wheelchair racing events. Hug, nicknamed 'The Silver Bullet', has competed in four Summer Paralympic Games for Switzerland, winning two bronze medals in his first Games in Athens in 2004. In 2010 he set four world records in four days, and at the 2011 World Championships he won a gold in the 10,000 metres and four silver medals, losing the gold in three events to long term rival David Weir. This rivalry continued into the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, where Hug won two silvers, in the 800m and the marathon. In the 2013 World Championships Hug dominated the field, winning five golds and a silver. During the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio, Hug was one of the most consistent competitors in the T54 class, winning two golds, in the 800 m and marathon, and two silvers medals, in the 1500m and 5000m.
Jake Lappin is an Australian para-athlete competing as a wheelchair racer. He represented Australia at the London 2012 Summer Paralympics and at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.
Kristy Pond is an Australian athletics competitor. She was selected to represent Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in athletics in the 100 metre and 200 metre events. She did not medal at the 2012 Games.
Jade Jones-Hall, known previously as Jade Jones, is an English wheelchair racer, competing in T54 events, and a paratriathlete competing in handbike-to-wheelchair classifications. Jones competed in the 2012 Summer Paralympics in the 400m, 800m and 1500m. In 2018, she won the gold medal in Paratriathlon at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Samantha May Kinghorn is a Scottish World Champion wheelchair racer.
Tomoki Suzuki is a Japanese wheelchair racer, who won the 2020 Tokyo Marathon, came second at the 2015, 2018, 2021 and 2023 Tokyo Marathons, and came third at the 2017 Tokyo and 2019 and 2023 London Marathons. Suzuki competed in multiple events at the 2020 Summer Paralympics, and won a bronze medal in the mixed 4 × 100 metres relay.
Diane Rakiecki is a Canadian Class 4 wheelchair racer, wheelchair basketball player and wheelchair tennis player who competed in the Paralympic Games and the World Athletics Championships. She won medals in national and regional Canadian wheelchair championships and the World Wheelchair Games. Rakiecki won the women's exhibition 800 metres wheelchair competition at the 1987 World Championships in Athletics in Rome and helped the Canada women's national wheelchair basketball team to win the bronze medal at the 1990 Wheelchair Basketball World Championship in France and the gold medal in the women's wheelchair basketball tournament at the 1992 Summer Paralympics in Barcelona. She finished second in the first ever officially recognized women's handcycle race of the New York City Marathon at the 2000 edition.
Ingrid Lauridsen is a Danish TW3 classified wheelchair racer who competed in the Paralympic Games and the IPC Athletics World Championships. She won a silver medal at the 1980 Summer Paralympics in Arnhem and took six gold medals and one bronze medal at the 1984 Summer Paralympics in New York and Stoke Mandeville. Lauridsen finished third in the women's 800 metres wheelchair event at the 1987 World Championships in Athletics in Rome. She took two gold medals and three bronze medals at the 1988 Summer Paralympics in Seoul and four silver medals at the 1992 Summer Paralympics in Barcelona. Lauridsen won three medals at the 1994 IPC Athletics World Championships in Berlin.
Nathan Maguire is a British wheelchair racer. He won multiple medals at both the 2018 and 2021 World Para Athletics European Championships, and also won the 400 metres mixed class race at multiple British Athletics Championships. Maguire competed in the 4 × 400 metres relay T53/T54 at the 2016 Summer Paralympics, and competed in the 400 metres T54, 800 metres T54 and mixed 4 × 100 metres relay events at the delayed 2020 Summer Paralympics. He was part of the British team that won a silver medal in the 2020 Paralympic mixed 4 × 100 metres relay. He also competed for England at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and won the 1500 metres T54 event at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
