| Date of birth | March 28, 1968 | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place of birth | Dorchester, Ontario, Canada | ||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Medal record | |||||||||||||
David Willsie (born March 28, 1968) is a Canadian coach and former Wheelchair rugby player.
| Date of birth | March 28, 1968 | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place of birth | Dorchester, Ontario, Canada | ||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Medal record | |||||||||||||
David Willsie (born March 28, 1968) is a Canadian coach and former Wheelchair rugby player.
Willsie was born on March 28, 1968, in Dorchester, Ontario, Canada [1] to parents John and Jean. [2] His father was an international ice hockey referee and his cousin Brian Willsie played in the National Hockey League. [1] Willsie was born and raised in London, Ontario and earned a marketing diploma from Fanshawe College. [3]
Willsie was a semi-pro baseball player and a cross-country runner before being left quadriplegic following a recreational hockey game in 1995. [2] While recovering in the hospital, Willsie was recruited by a local coach from Strathroy to play para-rugby. [4] At the time, he was not interested in wheelchair sports because he felt that they were more of a "consolation" sport. However, after visiting a local wheelchair rugby group and seeing their intensity, he chose to pursue the sport. [5] Following this, he started playing wheelchair rugby with the London Annihilators in 1997 and made the Ontario team in 1998. [3] He officially joined the Canadian National Wheelchair Rugby team in 1999. [6]
Upon qualifying for the Canadian National Wheelchair Rugby team, Willsie made his Paralympic Games debut in 2000. The team came in fourth and it was the first international showing where the team did not medal. [3] During the competition, he served as co-captain. [7] He remained as captain for the 2004 Summer Paralympics, where he won a silver medal. [8] The teams' experience during the Games were captured in the documentary Murderball which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. [9] [10] Willsie returned to Team Canada for the 2008 Summer Paralympics where he helped them win a bronze medal. [11]
As a result of his athletic achievements, Willsie's hometown recreation centre included a purpose-built training facility for use by Willsie and his team. [12] After winning another silver medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, Willsie was the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. [2] After Canada failed to medal in the 2016 Summer Paralympics, Willsie retired from competing but accepted an assistant coaching position with the national team. [13] [14] In 2017, Willsie and Garett Hickling became the first ever rugby players to have their jerseys retired by the Canadian Wheelchair Sports Association. [15]
Wheelchair rugby is a team sport for athletes with a disability. It is practiced in over twenty-five countries around the world and is a summer Paralympic sport.
Joe Soares is a former all-star wheelchair rugby player for the United States, a Paralympic gold medallist, who later coached the Canadian paralympic team after he was cut by the U.S. in 1996. This episode figures prominently in the 2005 documentary film Murderball.
Jeffrey Adams is a Canadian lawyer, and a former Paralympian, a six-time world champion in wheelchair sports.
Christopher Daw is a paralympian in wheelchair sports. Internationally, he competed in adaptive track, marathons, wheelchair basketball, volleyball, wheelchair rugby, and curling for Canada.
The Great Britain national wheelchair rugby team represents Great Britain in international wheelchair rugby. Great Britain is the most successful team in European competition, winning six gold medals at the European Championship and a gold at the 2020 Paralympic Games. Since a national poll as part of The Last Leg, the team have been known as The Sweet Chariots.'
Garett Hickling is a Canadian wheelchair rugby player. He is on the Canada national wheelchair rugby team and has been voted most valuable player at several World Championships (1995-1998-2002). He has a Gold medal from the 2002 World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, a silver medal from the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens, and a bronze medal from 2008 in Beijing. He was the Canadian flag-bearer at the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Paralympics. He has competed in every Paralympics that included his sport, representing Canada five times.
Wheelchair rugby is a sport with national representation at the Paralympic games. The Australian Team is known as the 'Steelers'.
Jason Lees, is a wheelchair rugby player from Victoria and was a member of the Australian Steelers that won the gold medals at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Paralympics and competed at the 2020 Summer Paralympics.
Brad Dubberley is an Australian Paralympic wheelchair rugby Head Coach and former athlete. He won a silver medal as an athlete at the 2000 Sydney Games and as the head coach at the 2008 Beijing Games in the mixed wheelchair rugby event. He is the head coach of the Australian Wheelchair Rugby team known as the Australian Steelers.
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.
Andrew Harrison, 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.
Christopher Adam Bond, is an Australian wheelchair rugby player. He has won gold medals at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Paralympics and competed at the 2020 Summer Paralympics.
Kylie Grimes is a British para-athlete. She is one of two women, along with Bieke Ketelbuters, who competed on wheelchair rugby teams at the 2012 Summer Paralympics. She was part of the GB team to win their first ever gold in the event, at the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, Japan, beating the USA 54–49. In doing so she became the first woman of any country to win a Paralympic gold medal in the sport.
David Anthony is a British wheelchair rugby athlete and member of the Great Britain national wheelchair rugby team. He represented Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London.
Mike Whitehead is a Canadian wheelchair rugby player. He has been with the team since 2001 and has won medals at several Paralympic Games. He was recruited to wheelchair rugby directly out of his rehabilitation hospital by teammate David Willsie and made the team less than a year later.
Duncan Campbell, sometimes known as "the Quadfather", is a Canadian co-inventor of murderball. In the 1970s, Campbell invented the sport with four other Canadians before the sport was renamed to wheelchair rugby. In the sport, Campbell coached the Canadian team that went to the 2000 Summer Paralympics and organized the 2010 IWRF World Championship. Apart from wheelchair rugby, Campbell became a recreational therapist for the G. F. Strong Centre in 1986. His honours include an induction into the Canadian Paralympic Committee Hall of Fame in 2005 and receiving the Paralympic Order in 2013.
Canada competed at the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, Japan, from 24 August to 5 September 2021.
The Ontario Games program is Ontario, Canada's largest multi-sport amateur event which involves hosting and organizing separate events for athletes aged 9–18 years, parasport athletes, and athletes 55 and older. The program is provided by the Government of Ontario's Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries. Games Ontario is the provincial crown corporation charged with organizing this multi-sport event under the title of "Ontario Games".
Kevin Orr is an American Paralympic athlete and coach. Orr won two bronze medals at the 1988 Summer Paralympics in the 800 and 5,000 meter races. Upon retiring from playing, Orr became a coach for Team USA and Canada.
Ayaz Mazeed Bhuta is a British Paralympic wheelchair rugby player and a former wheelchair basketball player who currently plays for the Great Britain national wheelchair rugby team. He has represented Great Britain at the Paralympics in 2016 and 2020.