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.
The National Paralympic Games are high-level multi-sport events held at the national level by the International Paralympic Committee and national Paralympic Committees in non-Olympic years. The events provide competitions for disabled athletes.
Lucy Jessica Shuker is a British wheelchair tennis player who is currently the highest ranked woman in the sport in Britain. A previous singles and doubles National Champion, Shuker has represented Great Britain at four successive Paralympic Games, twice winning a bronze medal in the women's doubles and is former world doubles champion and World Team Cup silver medallist amongst a number of other national and international successes.
The United States sent a delegation to compete at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, China. A total of 213 U.S. competitors took part in 18 sports; the only 2 sports Americans did not compete in were soccer 5-a-side and 7-a-side. The American delegation included 16 former members of the U.S. military, including 3 veterans of the Iraq War. Among them were shot putter Scott Winkler, who was paralyzed in an accident in Iraq, and swimmer Melissa Stockwell, a former United States Army officer who lost her left leg to a roadside bomb in the war.
Great Britain competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, United Kingdom, from 29 August to 9 September 2012 as the host nation. A total of 288 athletes were selected to compete along with 13 other team members such as sighted guides. The country finished third in the medals table, behind China and Russia, winning 120 medals in total; 34 gold, 43 silver and 43 bronze. Multiple medallists included cyclist Sarah Storey and wheelchair athlete David Weir, who won four gold medals each, and swimmer Stephanie Millward who won a total of five medals. Storey also became the British athlete with the most overall medals, 22, and equal-most gold medals, 11, in Paralympic Games history.
Disability sports classification is a system that allows for fair competition between people with different types of disabilities.
Dominic Monypenny is an Australian Paralympic rower and skier. He is a two-time world champion in the adaptive fixed seat single-sculls rowing category.
Mohamed Karim Sbihi is a British rower. He is a three-time Olympian and Olympic medal winner. He won a gold medal in the coxless four at 2016 Rio Olympics, and at the 2012 London Olympics he was in the British crew that won the bronze medal in the men's eight. He returned to the eight for the 2020 Tokyo games, again winning bronze.
Erik Horrie is an Australian wheelchair basketball player and a five-time world champion rower. He was a member of the Australia men's national wheelchair basketball team. Switching to rowing in 2011, he made an immediate impact in the sport, first winning the NSW State Rowing Championships and then the National Rowing Championships in Adelaide. He has won silver medals at the 2012, 2016, 2020 Summer Paralympics and a bronze at the 2024 Summer Paralympics. He won gold medals at the 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018 World Rowing Championships. Horrie has selected for the 2024 Paris Paralympics - his fourth Games.
PR2 is a Paralympic rowing classification for people with trunk and arm function. The class includes people with spinal cord injuries, including people who have lesions from T10 to L4. This class has its origins in the P2 class, part of the original classification system for the sport developed in 1991.
Naomi Joy Riches MBE, DL is a British adaptive rower who won a bronze medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics and a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics.
Aaron David Phipps is a British wheelchair rugby player and gold medal-winning paralympian.
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.
Canada competed at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 to 18 September 2016.
Germany competed at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 September to 18 September 2016. The first places the team qualified were for four athletes in sailing events. They also qualified athletes in archery, cycling, equestrian, paracanoeing, paratriathlon, rowing and wheelchair basketball.
Brazil competed in the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, as host country, from 7 September to 18 September 2016.
Lauren Rachel Catherine Rowles is a British parasport rower and former wheelchair athlete. She won gold with Laurence Whiteley in the trunk-arms mixed double sculls (TAMix2x) at the 2016 Summer Paralympics.The pair repeated their achievement in Tokyo at the 2021 Summer Paralympics.
Great Britain competed in the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, Japan. Originally scheduled to take place between 21 August and 6 September 2020, the Games were postponed to 24 August to 5 September 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. British athletes have competed at all sixteen consecutive Summer Paralympics since 1960.
Canada competed at the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, Japan, from 24 August to 5 September 2021.
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.
