Sir Ludwig Guttmann was a German-British neurologist who established the Stoke Mandeville Games, the sporting event for people with disabilities (PWD) that evolved in England into the Paralympic Games. A Jewish doctor who fled Nazi Germany just before the start of the Second World War, Guttmann was a founding father of organized physical activities for people with disabilities.
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.
Alix Louise Sauvage, OAM is an Australian paralympic wheelchair racer and leading coach.
The Paralympic sports comprise all the sports contested in the Summer and Winter Paralympic Games. As of 2020, the Summer Paralympics included 22 sports and 539 medal events, and the Winter Paralympics include 5 sports and disciplines and about 80 events. The number and kinds of events may change from one Paralympic Games to another.
Wheelchair racing is the racing of wheelchairs in track and road races. Wheelchair racing is open to athletes with any qualifying type of disability, including leg amputees, spinal cord injuries, and cerebral palsy. Athletes are classified in accordance with the nature and severity of their disability or combinations of disabilities. Like running, it can take place on a track or as a road race. The main competitions take place at the Summer Paralympics which wheelchair racing and athletics has been a part of since 1960. Competitors compete in specialized wheelchairs which allow the athletes to reach speeds of 30 km/h (18.6 mph) or more. It is one of the most prominent forms of Paralympic athletics.
Fung Ying-ki is a Paralympic wheelchair fencer from Hong Kong, China. At the 2000 Summer Paralympics he won three gold medals in the men's individual foil, team foil, and individual sabre events and took bronze in team sabre. Four years later at the Athens Paralympics, he won two golds in individual foil and team sabre and a silver in team foil.
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.
Gregory Stephen Smith, OAM is an Australian Paralympic athlete and wheelchair rugby player who won three gold medals in athletics at the 2000 Summer Paralympics, and a gold medal in wheelchair rugby at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, where he was the flag bearer at the opening ceremony.
Disability sports classification is a system that allows for fair competition between people with different types of disabilities.
Joshua Anthony "Josh" Hose, is a wheelchair rugby player. He has won gold medals at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Paralympics and competed at the 2020 Summer Paralympics.
Para-athletics classification is a system to determine which athletes with disabilities may compete against each other in para-athletics events. Classification is intended to group together athletes with similar levels of physical ability to allow fair competition. Classification was created and is managed by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), which is regularly published via its IPC Athletics Classification Handbook. People with physical, vision and intellectual disabilities are eligible to compete in this sport at the Summer Paralympics. The classification for this sport was created during the 1940s and for much of its early history was a medical condition based classification system. The classification system has subsequently become a functional mobility based one, and is moving towards an evidence-based classification system.
Wheelchair rugby classification is the seven class system that assigns players a point value based on functional mobility to insure parity in athletic ability on the court at any given time. Classification is handled by the International Wheelchair Rugby Federation.
John MacDonald Falconar Grant, AO, OBE was an Australian neurosurgeon and disability sport administrator. He was president of the 2000 Sydney Paralympic Games Organising Committee. He played a leading role in the development of disability sport in Australia.
Sharon Hedrick is an American former paralympic swimmer, wheelchair racer and wheelchair basketballer.
Les Autres sport classification is system used in disability sport for people with locomotor disabilities not included in other classification systems for people with physical disabilities. The purpose of this system is to facilitate fair competition between people with different types of disabilities, and to give credibility to disability sports. It was designed and managed by International Sports Organization for the Disabled (ISOD) until the 2005 merger with IWAS, when management switched to that organization. Classification is handled on the national level by relevant sport organizations.
LA1 is a Les Autres sport classification is an wheelchair sport classification for a sportsperson with a disability that impacts their locomotor function. People in this class have severe locomotor issues with all four limbs as a result of loss of muscle strength or spasticity. This also impacts their dominant throwing arm. They also have poor sitting balance.
Rory A. Cooper is an American bioengineer who currently serves as FISA/PVA Distinguished Professor, Past Chair, in the Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology and professor of bioengineering, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and orthopedic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also assistant vice chancellor for research for STEM and Health Sciences Collaboration. He holds an adjunct faculty position at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, and is an invited professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University in Xi'an, China.
Candace Cable is a nine-time Paralympian. She was the first woman to medal in the Summer and Winter Paralympic Games. Cable is also a six-time winner of the Boston Marathon, women's wheelchair division and winner of the first four Los Angeles Marathons.
Ann Cody is a three-time U.S. Paralympian who works at the United States Department of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor on the advancement of international disability rights. After debuting at the 1984 Summer Paralympics in wheelchair basketball, Cody won four silver medals in athletics at the 1988 Summer Paralympics. Cody also competed at the 1988 Summer Olympics in wheelchair racing. At her third Paralympics, Cody helped set a world record in the 4 × 100 m relay at the 1992 Summer Paralympics while winning one gold and one bronze medal.
Lisa I. Iezzoni is an American medical researcher with expertise in health policy. She is a professor at Harvard Medical School, as well as the director of the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is known for her research on health disparities among people with disabilities.
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