Ivor Jess MBE is a Northern Irish disability sports campaigner from Glenavy, [1] County Antrim. Jess plays a range of sports, including wheelchair basketball with the Knights Basketball team in Antrim. He also founded the Freewheelers cycle ride, the wheelchair tennis group Spokes in Motion based at Ormeau and Ski Ability in Craigavon.
He began playing wheelchair sport after a spinal injury at the age of 29. [2] The injury occurred from a cycling accident while Jess was preparing for a fundraising ride in aid of research into kidney disease. Since his injury, he has organised the event as the annual Freewheelers Lough Neagh Charity Cycle in aid of disability sport. [1] He has raised over £100,000 for Disability Sport in Northern Ireland.
An electrician by training, Jess works as a health and safety officer with Stoneyford Concrete. He is married to Karen and has two daughters, Angelina and Megan. [3]
He was awarded the MBE in the 2011 New Year’s Honours list, for services to disability sport in Northern Ireland. [4] Disability Sports NI said Jess had made a “massive contribution” to playing, promoting and fundraising for disability sport in Northern Ireland.
In 2012, Jess took part in the torch relay for the London 2012 Paralympic Games. [5]
He is team captain for Northern Ireland wheelchair tennis at the 2015 School Games in Manchester
County Antrim is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, located within the historic province of Ulster. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of 3,086 square kilometres (1,192 sq mi) and has a population of 651,321, as of the 2021 census. County Antrim has a population density of 211 people per square kilometre or 546 people per square mile. It is also one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland.
Lough Neagh is a freshwater lake in Northern Ireland and is the largest lake on the island of Ireland and in the United Kingdom. It has a surface area of 151 square miles and is about 19 miles (31 km) long and 9 miles (14 km) wide. According to Northern Ireland Water, it supplies 40.7% of Northern Ireland's drinking water. Its main inflows are the Upper River Bann and Blackwater, and its main outflow is the Lower Bann. There are several small islands, including Ram's Island, Coney Island and Derrywarragh Island. The lake bed is owned by the 12th Earl of Shaftesbury and the lake is managed by Lough Neagh Partnership. Its name comes from Irish Loch nEachach, meaning "Eachaidh's lake".
The River Bann is the longest river in Northern Ireland, its length, Upper and Lower Bann combined, being 129 km (80 mi). However, the total length of the River Bann, including its path through the 30 km (19 mi) long Lough Neagh is 159 km (99 mi). Another length of the River Bann given is 90 mi. The river winds its way from the southeast corner of Ulster to the northwest coast, pausing in the middle to widen into Lough Neagh. The River Bann catchment has an area of 5,775 km2. The River Bann has a mean discharge rate of 92 m3/s. According to C. Michael Hogan, the Bann River Valley is a settlement area for some of the first human arrivals in Ireland after the most recent glacial retreat.
Glenavy is a village and civil parish in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is approximately 11 miles west of Belfast and eight miles north-west of Lisburn, and sits on the banks of the Glenavy river. In the 2011 Census it had a population of 5,697 people. In early documents it was wriiten as "Lenavy".
Jeffrey Adams is a Canadian lawyer, and a former Paralympian, a six-time world champion in wheelchair sports.
Ballyronan is a village and townland in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, on the north western shore of Lough Neagh. The village is 5 miles (8 km) from Magherafelt and 12 miles (19 km) from Cookstown. It is situated within Mid-Ulster District.
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.
Antrim, sometimes known as Antrim Borough to distinguish it from the former constituency of the same name, was a single-member county constituency of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.
The Summer Paralympics, also known as the Games of the Paralympiad, are an international multi-sport event where athletes with physical disabilities compete. This includes athletes with mobility disabilities, amputations, blindness, and cerebral palsy. The Paralympic Games are held every four years, organized by the International Paralympic Committee. Medals are awarded in every event, with gold medals for first place, silver for second and bronze for third, a tradition that the Olympic Games started in 1904.
Peter Robert Norfolk OBE is a British wheelchair tennis player. Following a motorbike accident which left him paraplegic, he uses a wheelchair. He took up tennis and following a further spinal complication in 2000, he began competing in the quad division. He is nicknamed The Quadfather.
Simon Richardson MBE is a Welsh paralympic racing cyclist.
Antrim and Newtownabbey is a local government district in Northern Ireland. The district was created on 1 April 2015 by merging the Borough of Antrim with the Borough of Newtownabbey. The local authority is Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council.
Kelly Gallagher MBE, is a retired British skier and the first athlete from Northern Ireland to compete in the Winter Paralympics. Gallagher won Britain's first ever Winter Paralympic gold medal during Sochi 2014.
Gary Leslie Hooper, MBE is an Australian Paralympic competitor. He won seven medals at three Paralympics from 1960 to 1968.
Disability sports classification is a system that allows for fair competition between people with different types of disabilities.
Gordon James Reid is a British professional wheelchair tennis player. He was ranked world No. 1 in singles and world No. 1 in doubles. He is a Paralympic gold, silver, and bronze medalist, two-time Grand Slam singles champion, and twenty-three time Grand Slam doubles champion.
James Roberts MBE is a wheelchair basketball player and Paralympic athlete based in Prestatyn, Denbighshire, Wales. Roberts was born with a disability called femoral dysplasia. He started out in his sporting career as a swimmer, and progressed on to other Paralympic sports, such as rowing and sitting volleyball. He competed for Great Britain at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics, finishing fifth in the trunk and arm classification in adaptive rowing. He also competed for Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, finishing 8th in the sitting volleyball. More recently he has begun playing wheelchair basketball for local side Rhyl Raptors.
Samantha May Kinghorn is a Scottish World Champion wheelchair racer and TV presenter.
Great Britain and Northern Ireland competed, under the name Great Britain, at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 September to 18 September 2016. The first places for which the team qualified were for six athletes in sailing events.
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.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)