The International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports (IWAS) World Games (or IWAS World Games) are a multi-sport competition for athletes with a disability, which were the forerunner of the Paralympic Games. The competition has been formerly known as the World Wheelchair and Amputee Games, the World Wheelchair Games, the International Stoke Mandeville Games, the Stoke Mandeville Games (SMG), and in the 1960s and 1970s was often referred to as the Wheelchair Olympics.
Caudal regression syndrome, or sacral agenesis, is a rare birth defect. It is a congenital disorder in which the fetal development of the lower spine—the caudal partition of the spine—is abnormal. It occurs at a rate of approximately one per 60,000 live births.
Jessica Tatiana Long is a Russian-American Paralympic swimmer from Baltimore, Maryland, who competes in the S8, SB7 and SM8 category events. She has held many world records and competed at five Paralympic Games, winning 29 medals. She has also won over 50 world championship medals.
Para-athletics is the sport of athletics practised by people with a disability as a parasport. The athletics events within the parasport are mostly the same as those available to able-bodied people, with two major exceptions in wheelchair racing and the club throw, which are specific to the division. The sport is known by various names, including disability athletics, disabled track and field and Paralympic athletics. Top-level competitors may be called elite athletes with disability.
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.
Theresa Goh Rui SiBBM is a Singaporean swimmer and Paralympic medalist, with a bronze at the SB4 100m breaststroke at the 2016 Summer Paralympics. She holds the world records for the SB4 50 metres and 200 metres breaststroke events.
Australia competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics Games in London, United Kingdom, from 29 August to 9 September 2012. The London Games were the biggest Games with 164 nations participating, 19 more than in the 2008 Beijing Paralympic. Australia has participated at every Summer Paralympic Games and hosted the 2000 Sydney Games. As such, the 2000 Sydney Games, regarded as one of the more successful Games, became a point-of-reference and an inspiration in the development of the 2012 London Games.
T33 and CP3 are disability sport classification for disability athletics. The class competes using a wheelchair. The classification is one of eight for people with cerebral palsy, and one of four for people with cerebral palsy who use a wheelchair. Athletes in this class have moderate quadriplegia, and difficulty with forward trunk movement. They also may have hypertonia, ataxia and athetosis.
T35 is a disability sport classification for disability athletics' running competitions. It includes people who have coordination impairments such as hypertonia, ataxia and athetosis. This includes people with cerebral palsy. The classification is used at the Paralympic Games. The corresponding F35 classification includes club and discus throw, shot put, and javelin.
T51 is disability sport classification for athletics. The class includes people with a number of different types of disabilities including spinal cord injuries and cerebral palsy. Similar classifications are T52, T53, T54 and T55. It is for sportspeople with minimal upper body function who use a wheelchair, spinal cord injury class F1 and Les Autres class LAF1.
Frame running, previously known as RaceRunning, is an adaptive athletic discipline, primarily for people with severe coordination and balance impairments such as cerebral palsy. Athletes use a three-wheeled running frame, with a saddle, body support and most notably, no pedals. Athletes run over distances similar to other track and road running disciplines; 100, 200, 400, 800 meters as well as 5 kilometers, 10 kilometers, half and full marathons. Like running more generally, frame running can be competitive, recreational, or for health and fitness.
Kristy Pond is an Australian athletics competitor. She was selected to represent Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in athletics in the 100 metre and 200 metre events. She did not medal at the 2012 Games.
Hannah Lucy Cockroft is a British wheelchair racer specialising in sprint distances in the T34 classification. She holds the world records for the 100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres, 800 metres and 1500 metres in her classification and the Paralympic records at 100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres and 800 metres. Competing for Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, she won two gold medals. She won three further gold medals at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Nathenial "Nath" Arkley is an Australian Paralympic track and field athlete. At the 2012 Summer Paralympics, he won a bronze medal.
Brent Lakatos is a Canadian wheelchair racer in the T53 classification. Lakatos has represented Canada at three Summer Paralympics, and at the 2012 Games he won three silver medals in the sprint and mid-distance events. In 2013 Lakatos reached the pinnacle of his sport when he collected four gold medals at the IPC Athletics World Championships and became world champion at his classification in the 100m, 200m and 400m events.
Meggan Dawson-Farrell is a Scottish wheelchair racer.
Samuel Harrison Carter is a Paralympic athlete, who competes in 100m, 200m, 400m T54 events. He has represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics and 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
Toby Gold is an English wheelchair racer. He is classified as a T33 athlete and competes primarily in sprint events, winning the 100m gold in the 2016 European Championships and silver at the 2016 Paralympic Games.
F7, also SP7, is a wheelchair sport classification that corresponds to the neurological level S1- S2. Historically, it has been referred to as Lower 5. It is characterized by people having their lower limb muscles strength and function impacted. People in the SP7 class generally have good sitting balance and some trunk movement backwards and forwards. One side may be stronger than the other.
Isabella Vincent is an Australian Paralympic swimmer. At the age of fifteen, she was the youngest Australian swimmer selected for the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, where she won a silver and bronze medal.
