| Personal information | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Kevin Wayne Bawden | ||||||||||
| Nationality |  Australia | ||||||||||
| Born | 1946 | ||||||||||
Medal record
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Kevin Wayne Bawden AM [1] (born 1946) [2] is an Australian Paralympics competitor in six sports and a leading disability sports administrator in Australia.
Bawden was born in 1946 and lives in Adelaide, South Australia. [2] He contracted polio at the age of four and at the age of 18 became involved in sport. [3] He was employed with the Australian Government in several management roles for thirty five years until in 2001. [3] From 2001 to 2006, he was the chief executive officer of a not-for-profit organisation in Adelaide. [3]
Bawden participated in four Summer Paralympics, three as an athlete and one as an official and coach. [3] At the 1968 Tel Aviv Games, he participated in archery, dartchery, lawn bowls, table tennis, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair fencing. [4] At these Games, South Australian wheelchair athletes represented Australia for the first time. He participated in shooting, table tennis and wheelchair basketball at the 1976 Toronto Games. [4] At the 1984 Stoke Mandeville Games, he participated in shooting. He was a wheelchair sports official and assistant basketball coach at the 1988 Seoul Games. [4] Bawden won a gold medal in the Smallbore Rifle at the 1974 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in Dunedin, New Zealand. [3] He participated at the FESPIC Games. [3]
He represented South Australia at twelve National Championships for wheelchair athletes. [3]
At age 19, Bawden established Wheelchair Sports Association of South Australia. [3] He was President of the Association for 28 years. [3] He was Chairman of the inaugural National Junior Disability Games. [3] At these Games, the Kevin Bawden Shield recognised his enormous contribution to junior disability sport. He was awarded Member of the Order of Australia for his contribution to disability sport. [1] Australia's greatest Paralympic shooter, Libby Kosmala states that Bawden played a role in her initial involvement in shooting. [5]
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Elizabeth "Libby" Dudley Kosmala, OAM is an Australian shooter with paraplegia. She represented Australia at twelve Paralympics from 1972 to 2016, and won thirteen medals, nine of them gold.
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