Related Research Articles
The International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports (IWAS) World Games are a multi-sport competition for athletes with a disability, which under the former name of the International Stoke Mandeville Games were the forerunner of the Paralympic Games. The competition has been formerly known as the World Wheelchair and Amputee Games, the Stoke Mandeville Wheelchair Games, the Stoke Mandeville Games, the World Wheelchair Games, and in the 1960s and 1970s was often referred to as the Wheelchair Olympics.
The 1968 Summer Paralympics were the third Paralympic Games to be held. Organised under the guidance of the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation (ISMGF), they were known as the 17th International Stoke Mandeville Games at the time. The games were originally planned to be held alongside the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, but in 1966, the Mexican government decided against it due to difficulties. The Israeli government offered to host the games in Tel Aviv, a suggestion that was accepted.
The 1984 International Games for the Disabled, canonically the 1984 Summer Paralympics were the seventh Paralympic Games to be held. There were in two separate competitions: one in Stoke Mandeville, United Kingdom for wheelchair athletes with spinal cord injuries and the other at the Mitchel Athletic Complex and Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, United States of America for wheelchair and ambulatory athletes with cerebral palsy, amputees, and les autres [the others]. Stoke Mandeville had been the location of the Stoke Mandeville Games from 1948 onwards, seen as the precursors to the Paralympic Games. As with the 1984 Summer Olympics, the Soviet Union and other communist countries except China, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia boycotted the Paralympic Games. The Soviet Union did not participate in the Paralympics at the time, arguing that they have no disabled people in the country. The USSR made its Paralympic debut in 1988, during Perestroika.
Wheelchair basketball is basketball played by people with varying physical disabilities that disqualify them from playing an able-bodied sport. These include spina bifida, birth defects, cerebral palsy, paralysis due to accident, amputations, and many other disabilities. The International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) is the governing body for this sport. It is recognized by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) as the sole competent authority in wheelchair basketball worldwide. FIBA has recognized IWBF under Article 53 of its General Statutes.
Sir Ludwig "Poppa" Guttmann was a German-born British neurologist who established the Paralympic Games in England. A Jewish doctor, who had fled Nazi Germany just before the start of the Second World War, he is considered to be one of the founding fathers of organised physical activities for people with a disability.
WheelPower is the national organisation for wheelchair sports in the United Kingdom, and aims to help people with disabilities improve their quality of life.
The International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Federation (IWAS) is an international sports organisation that governs sports for athletes with physical impairments.
The Paralympic sports comprise all the sports contested in the Summer and Winter Paralympic Games. As of 2016, the Summer Paralympics included 22 sports and 526 medal events, and the Winter Paralympics include 5 sports and disciplines and about 72 events. The number and kinds of events may change from one Paralympic Games to another.
Sir Philip Craven is an English sports administrator, former Paralympic wheelchair basketball player, swimmer and track and field athlete. Between 2001 and 2017 he was the second president of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).
Stoke Mandeville Stadium is the National Centre for Disability Sport in England. It is sited alongside Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. Stoke Mandeville Stadium is owned by WheelPower, the national organisation for wheelchair sport.
Sir George Montario Bedbrook, OBE was an Australian medical doctor and surgeon, who was the driving force in creating the Australian Paralympic movement and the Commonwealth Paraplegic Games, and helped to found the FESPIC Games.
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 1984 Summer Paralympics that were held in two locations - Stoke Mandeville, United Kingdom and in the Mitchel Athletic Complex and Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, United States of America. Four months before the beginning of the 1984 summer Paralympics, the University of Illinois terminating their contract to hold the Games. Australia won 154 medals - 49 gold, 54 silver and 51 bronze medals. Australia competed in 9 sports and won medals in 6 sports. Australia finished 8th on the gold medal table and 7th on the total medal table.
Kevin Francis Betts, OAM was a sports administrator known for his work in the Paralympic movement in Australia and his founding work related to wheelchair sports in New South Wales.
Robert McCullough OAM was a leading Australian sport administrator particularly in the area of disability sport. He was President of the Australian Paralympic Federation and the International Stoke Mandeville Wheelchair Sports Federation.
Wheelchair sport classification is a system designed to allow fair competition between people of different disabilities, and minimize the impact of a person's specific disability on the outcome of a competition. Wheelchair sports is associated with spinal cord injuries, and includes a number of different types of disabilities including paraplegia, quadriplegia, muscular dystrophy, post-polio syndrome and spina bifida. The disability must meet minimal body function impairment requirements. Wheelchair sport and sport for people with spinal cord injuries is often based on the location of lesions on the spinal cord and their association with physical disability and functionality.
Charlene Stuart Meade was an Australian athlete who became the first Australian woman to participate in the Stoke Mandeville Games, the precursor to the Paralympic Games. She finished second amongst women in the archery event, and later competed in the 1959 edition in para-swimming, archery and javelin. At the 1974 games, she won a silver medal in table tennis. Todman later became active in dog sports.
Maura Strange is the former secretary-general of the International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Federation from 1993 to 2012. She started her career in the 1970s volunteering with the Stoke Mandeville Hospital and remained working in disability sports until her retirement in 2012. Strange was awarded the Paralympic Order in 2009 and the International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports's Pursuit Trophy in 2013.
Joan Horan was an Irish paralympic athlete, and the first Irish woman to compete in the Paralymic Games.
References
- 1 2 "Tributes Paid to Joan Scruton" (PDF). The Paralympian. No. 4. 2007. p. 5. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
- 1 2 3 Harris, Phillip (May 1994). "Miss Joan Scruton MBE". Paraplegia. 32 (5): 362–63. doi: 10.1038/sc.1994.62 .
- ↑ Hums, Mary (2010). "Women's Leadership in the Olympic Movement". In O'Connor, Karen (ed.). Gender and Women's Leadership: A Reference Handbook Volume 2. SAGE. p. 847. ISBN 9781412960830 . Retrieved 2 October 2017.
- ↑ "IWAS Awards". International Wheelchair & Amputee Sports Federation. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
- ↑ "The Paralympic Order". Paralympic Movement. Retrieved 1 October 2017.