 Vecera in 1958 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | 1937or1938(age 86–87) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | Saint Louis University University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country |  United States | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Para-athletics Snooker Wheelchair basketball | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Frank Vecera (born 1937/1938) [1] [lower-alpha 1] is an American paralympic athlete, snooker and wheelchair basketball player. He competed at the 1960 and 1964 Summer Paralympics. [2] [3]
Vecera attended Saint Louis University, where he studied to be an engineer. He also attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he earned his BA degree in advertising design. [4] He was a member of the Long Beach Flying Wheels. [5]
Vecera competed at the 1960 Summer Paralympics, winning a gold medal in the men's wheelchair basketball tournament A event. [2] He then competed at the 1964 Summer Paralympics, winning three bronze medals, two silver medals and a gold medal in athletics, snooker and wheelchair basketball. [3]
The 1964 Summer Paralympics, originally known as the 13th International Stoke Mandeville Games and also known as Paralympic Tokyo 1964, were the second Paralympic Games to be held. They were held in Tokyo, Japan, and were the last Summer Paralympics to take place in the same city as the Summer Olympics until the 1988 Summer Paralympics.
Steven Serio is a wheelchair basketball player. As a co-captain of the USA Men's National Wheelchair Basketball Team, he led the American men to their first Paralympic gold medal since 1988 at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympic Games and defended the gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics. He currently plays for the New York Rolling Knicks in the NWBA Championship Division.
Shelley Matheson is an Australian 3.5-point player wheelchair basketball player. She participated in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens, where she won a silver medal; in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, where she won a bronze medal, and the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, where she won a second silver medal, a win she dedicated to her lifelong friend Shannon.
Dylan Martin Alcott, is an Australian former wheelchair tennis player, former wheelchair basketball player, radio host and motivational speaker. Alcott was a member of the Australia men's national wheelchair basketball team, known colloquially as the Australian "Rollers". At the age of 17, he became the youngest Rollers gold medal winner, at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics, and was the youngest to compete in the wheelchair basketball competition. In 2014, he returned to wheelchair tennis with the aim of participating at the 2016 Rio Paralympics, at which he won gold medals in the Men's Quad Singles and Doubles. He was named the 2016 Australian Paralympian of the Year due to his outstanding achievements at Rio.
Wheelchair basketball at the 1960 Summer Paralympics consisted of two men's tournaments. One for athletes with complete lesion paraplegia, and one for athletes with incomplete paraplegia.
Francis Ettore Ponta was an Australian Paralympic competitor and coach. He competed in several sports including basketball, pentathlon, swimming and fencing. A paraplegic, he lost the use of both his legs after a tumour was removed from his spinal column when he was a teenager. Ponta was a member of Australia's first national wheelchair basketball team, and is credited with expanding the sport of wheelchair basketball in Western Australia. At the end of his competitive career, he became a coach, working with athletes such as Louise Sauvage, Priya Cooper, Madison de Rozario, Bruce Wallrodt and Bryan Stitfall. He died on 1 June 2011 at the age of 75 after a long illness.
Ronald Arthur "Ron" Stein was an American athlete who competed at the inaugural Summer Paralympic Games held in Rome in 1960.
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.
Dr. Bridie Kean is an Australian wheelchair basketball player and canoeist. She won a bronze medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, and a silver medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. In 2016, she became a va'a world champion.
Also known as the 13th Stoke Mandeville Games, the 1964 Summer Paralympics was the 2nd Paralympic Games. Hosted in Tokyo, the games ran from 8 to 12 November. Australia won a total of 30 medals and finished fourth on the medal tally behind Italy (3rd), Great Britain (2nd) and the United States (1st). Australia competed in 6 of the 9 sports at the Games, winning medals in each of those sports, but was most successful in the pool, winning a majority of their medals in swimming events.
Edina Müller is a German 2.5 point wheelchair basketball player and KL1 canoeist. She played for ASV Bonn in the German wheelchair basketball league, and for the national team. As part of the German women's national wheelchair basketball team, she won bronze at the 2006 World Cup in Amsterdam, won three time European champions, a silver medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, and a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. The team was voted 2008 Team of the Year in disabled sports, and Horst Köhler presented it with Germany's highest sports award, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt. President Joachim Gauck awarded the team a second Silver Leaf after it won the gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics. Müller was also a two-time U.S. champion (2006-2008) with her college team Illinois Fighting Illini at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and helped ASV Bonn win the European Cup in Valladolid, Spain in 2009. From 2011 to 2014 she played for Hamburger SV.
Wayne Henry Broeren from Champaign, Illinois, was a United States Paralympic athlete. In the 1960 Summer Paralympics, he competed in multiple sports including dartchery and wheelchair basketball.
Megan Blunk is an American wheelchair basketball player for the United States women's national wheelchair basketball team. She won a gold medal for Team USA during the 2016 Summer Paralympics.
Jana A. Shelfer is an American Paralympic wheelchair basketball player. She has won a bronze medal at the 1996 Summer Paralympics and a gold medal at the 2004 Summer Paralympics.
Travis Gaertner is a Canadian-American actuary. He previously competed with Team Canada in the Paralympic Games in wheelchair basketball, where he won a gold medal at the 2000 Summer Paralympics and the 2004 Summer Paralympics.
Rosalie Joyce Hixson, later Rosalie Wiherin, was an American wheelchair athlete. She earned medals at the 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1976 Paralympic Games.
Evelyn Marie Mulry Moore was an American athlete who won two gold medals in swimming events at the 1964 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo and a gold and two silver medals at the 1968 Summer Paralympics in Tel Aviv. She also competed in field events at the National Wheelchair Games in the 1960s and 1970s. She was inducted into the National Wheelchair Athletic Association Hall of Fame in 1978.
Jack Whitman was an American paralympic archer and dartcher. He competed at the 1960 and 1964 Summer Paralympics.
Terri Goodknight is an American Paralympic athlete and wheelchair basketball player. She won a gold medal at the 1988 Summer Paralympics.
Bob Hawkes, also known as Robert C. Hawkes, was an American paralympic archer, athlete, swimmer and wheelchair basketball player. He competed at the 1960, 1964 and 1968 Summer Paralympics.
