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.
Edith Wolf is a Swiss former wheelchair racer, who competed in the T54 classification. Wolf competed at a range of distances from 400m to marathon length events and is a multiple World and Paralympic Games winner. Wolf has also eight major marathon titles to her name having won the women's wheelchair race at the Berlin Marathon (2011), Boston Marathon and New York Marathon.
Christie Dawes is an Australian Paralympic wheelchair racing athlete. She has won three medals in athletics at seven Paralympics from 1996 to 2021.
David Russell Weir is a British Paralympic wheelchair athlete. He has won a total of six gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 Paralympic Games, and has won the London Marathon on eight occasions. He was born with a spinal cord transection that left him unable to use his legs.
Great Britain competed at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, People's Republic of China. Great Britain sent a delegation of around 400, of which 212 were athletes, to compete in eighteen sports at the Games. The team was made up of athletes from the whole United Kingdom; athletes from Northern Ireland, who may elect to hold Irish citizenship under the pre-1999 article 2 of the Irish constitution, are able to be selected to represent either Great Britain or Ireland at the Paralympics. Additionally some British overseas territories compete separately from Britain in Paralympic competition.
The United States sent a delegation to compete at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, China. A total of 213 U.S. competitors took part in 18 sports; the only 2 sports Americans did not compete in were soccer 5-a-side and 7-a-side. The American delegation included 16 former members of the U.S. military, including 3 veterans of the Iraq War. Among them were shot putter Scott Winkler, who was paralyzed in an accident in Iraq, and swimmer Melissa Stockwell, a former United States Army officer who lost her left leg to a roadside bomb in the war.
This article contains notable highlights from the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, China.
Tatyana McFadden is an American Paralympic athlete competing in the category T54. McFadden has won twenty Paralympic medals in multiple Summer Paralympic Games and the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability in 2015.
Amanda McGrory is an American wheelchair athlete.
Marathon events have been held at the Summer Paralympic Games, for both men and women, since the 1984 Summer Paralympics in Stoke Mandeville and New York City. They are held as part of the Paralympic athletics programme.
Japan competed at the 1968 Summer Paralympics in Tel Aviv, Israel from November 4 to 13, 1968. The team finished sixteenth of the twenty-eight competing nations in the medal table and won a total of twelve medals; two gold, two silver and eight bronze. Forty-eight Japanese athletes took part in the Games; forty-one men and seven women.
Great Britain competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, United Kingdom, from 29 August to 9 September 2012 as the host nation. A total of 288 athletes were selected to compete along with 13 other team members such as sighted guides. The country finished third in the medals table, behind China and Russia, winning 120 medals in total; 34 gold, 43 silver and 43 bronze. Multiple medallists included cyclist Sarah Storey and wheelchair athlete David Weir, who won four gold medals each, and swimmer Stephanie Millward who won a total of five medals. Storey also became the British athlete with the most overall medals, 22, and equal-most gold medals, 11, in Paralympic Games history.
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, 2020 Tokyo and 2024 Paris Paralympics, winning two gold, four silver and two bronze medals. 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.
Amanda Fraser is an Australian Paralympic athlete and swimmer. She has cerebral palsy and competes in the F37 category for the physically impaired. Competing in the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Summer Paralympics, she won two silver and two bronze medals, and in the 2006 World Championships, she won a gold and a silver medal. In the 2006 championships, she set a world record for discus in her classification, and was named 2006 Telstra Female AWD Athlete of the Year by Athletics Australia. Fraser now works as a personal trainer, working with people unfamiliar to a gym environment, especially women. She advocates for women empowerment and aims to help women develop their mental and physical strength.
Marcel Eric Hug is a Paralympic 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 800m and marathon, and two silvers medals, in the 1500m and 5000m.
The 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships was the biggest track and field competition for athletes with a disability since the 2012 Summer Paralympics. It was held in Lyon, France, and lasted from 20 to 28 July. Around 1,100 athletes competed, from 94 different countries. The event was held in the Stade du Rhône located at the Parc de Parilly in Vénissieux, in Lyon Metropolis.
The Gambia sent a delegation to compete at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7–18 September 2016. This was the nation's second appearance at the Paralympics, following their first participation in the 2012 London Paralympics. The Gambia sent one athlete, Demba Jarju, who failed to advance from his heat in the men's 100 meters T54 event.
Burkina Faso sent a delegation to compete at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 to 18 September 2016. This was the country's sixth time competing at a Summer Paralympic Games after making its debut at the 1992 Summer Paralympics. Burkina Faso was represented by one athlete, Jacques Ouedraogo. He competed in one event, the men's 100 metres T54 competition, where he was eliminated in the heat stages because he was last in his heat and only the top two participants in a heat progressed to the semi-finals.
