Australia has participated officially in every Paralympic Games since its inauguration in 1960 except for the 1976 Winter Paralympics.
Australia competed at the 1968 Summer Paralympics in Tel Aviv, Israel. The Games significantly expanded in 1968 when compared to previous years, as did the Australian team and the events included in the Games. Mexico City were originally to host the 1968 Paralympics, however, they were moved to Tel Aviv in Israel.
Australia sent a team to compete at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, West Germany. Australian won 25 medals - 6 gold, 9 silver, and 10 bronze medals in six sports. Australia finished 11th on the gold medal table and 9th on the total medal table.
Great Britain sent a delegation to compete at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, West Germany. Teams from the nation are referred to by International Paralympic Committee (IPC) as Great Britain despite athletes from the whole of the United Kingdom, including those from Northern Ireland, being eligible. They sent seventy two competitors, forty seven male and twenty five female. The team won fifty-two medals—sixteen gold, fifteen silver and twenty-one bronze—to finish third in the medal table behind West Germany and the United States. Philip Craven, the former President of the IPC, competed in athletics, swimming and wheelchair basketball for Great Britain at these Games.
Michael Shelton is a British sportsman who competed at the Summer Paralympic Games five times between 1960 and 1976 in snooker and other sports. He won six Paralympic medals, four gold, a silver and a bronze. He also won gold at the 1974 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games.
Daphne Jean Hilton was an Australian Paralympic competitor. She was the first Australian woman to compete at the Paralympic Games. She won fourteen medals in three Paralympics in archery, athletics, fencing, swimming, and table tennis from 1960 to 1968.
Ross Edward Sutton was the first Australian Paralympic gold medallist. He represented Australia in archery at the 1960 Summer Paralympics in Rome, Italy and dartchery and fencing at the 1962 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in Perth, Western Australia. Sutton also competed in table tennis at the Second National Paraplegic Games.
Roy Fowler was an Australian Paralympic competitor, who won ten medals at six Paralympics from 1964 to 1988.
Gary Leslie Hooper, MBE is an Australian Paralympic competitor. He won seven medals at three Paralympics from 1960 to 1968.
Fabian John Blattman, OAM is an Australian Paralympic athlete. He became disabled after a motorbike accident. He started playing disabled bowls, before switching to athletics. As a Paralympic athletics competitor, he has set several world records and won two Paralympic gold medals.
Australia competed at the 1980 Summer Paralympics in Arnhem, Netherlands. It was the 6th Summer Paralympic Games in which Australia had competed. These Games were the biggest Paralympics yet, with 1,973 people participating. Of those participants, 57 were Australian. The team was made up of 45 men and 12 women, and was Australia's largest team to compete at any Paralympic Games so far.
Terence "Terry" Giddy is an Australian Paralympic athlete with paraplegia, who won six medals over six Paralympics.
John Martin is an Australian Paralympic archer, athlete, table tennis player, wheelchair basketballer and wheelchair fencer who won three silver medals at five Paralympics. He was born in England and emigrated to Australia with his family at the age of 13.
Eric Cyril Russell, MBE is an Australian Paralympic athlete, coach, and administrator.
Alan Conn is an Australian Paralympian archer and table tennis player from New South Wales. He had an accident at 18 on his motorcycle that led to him becoming paraplegic. At the 1968 Tel Aviv Games, he won a gold medal in the Men's Columbia Round open archery event, with a world record score of 618, and a silver medal in the Mixed Pairs open dartchery event. He also competed but did not win a medal in the Men's Doubles B table tennis event. At the time of the Games, he was 24 years old, and working as a shoe maker for the Commonwealth rehabilitation artificial limb plant. He started competing in archery three years before the Games. At the 1972 Heidelberg Games, he won a bronze medal in the Men's FITA Round Team open.
The Commonwealth Paraplegic Games were an international, multi-sport event involving athletes with a disability from the Commonwealth countries. The event was sometimes referred to as the Paraplegic Empire Games and British Commonwealth Paraplegic Games. Athletes were generally those with spinal injuries or polio. The Games were an important milestone in the Paralympic sports movement as they began the decline of the Stoke Mandeville Games' dominating influence. The event was first held in 1962 and disestablished in 1974. The Games were held in the country hosting the Commonwealth Games for able-bodied athletes, a tradition eventually fully adopted by the larger Olympic and Paralympic movements.
Stan Kosmala is an Australian Paralympic competitor, who has competed in athletics, wheelchair basketball, lawn bowls and shooting. Born in Germany, he contracted polio at the age of two. He is married to Paralympic shooter Libby Kosmala, whom he met through wheelchair sport, and has two sons and two grandchildren.
Bruce Oliver Thwaite was an Australian Paralympic competitor. During World War II, he sustained a spinal injury when he landed on a tree after parachuting from a bomber plane over Germany. He was treated at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
Anthony Eric "Tony" South OAM AM is an Australian Paralympic archer who won a gold medal and two silver medals at the 1968 Summer Paralympics and a bronze medal at the 1972 Summer Paralympics.
Tommy Taylor was a British Paralympic athlete who won sixteen medals across five sports, including ten gold medals. Taylor was treated by Ludwig Guttmann after an accident in 1956 caused severe paralysis. He went on to compete at numerous Paralympic Games, finding particular success in para table tennis from Rome 1960 to Arnhem 1980. Eight of Taylor's gold medals came in table tennis, along with one in snooker and one in lawn bowls.
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