Personal information | |
---|---|
Born | Nepal | 29 March 1989
Sport | |
Sport | Swimming |
Classifications | S6, SB5, SM6 |
Club | Nepal Spinal Cord Injury Sports Association (NSCISA) |
Laxmi Kunwar is the first Nepali athlete to represent Nepal in swimming at the Paralympic Games held in Rio de Janeiro. [1] [2] [3] [4] She participated in the S6 100m freestyle event. [5]
At the age of 16, Kunwar fell from a tree while collecting grass in a jungle near her village in Nepal. She sustained a fracture in her spinal cord injuries that paralyzed her legs. [6] [7] [8] Kunwar was forced to drop out of school due to lack of facilities that could support her impairment.
Her family later moved to Kathmandu and she was able to continue her education in Business Administration. [7] Kunwar represents the Nepal Spinal Cord Injury Sports Association. [1]
Kunwar took up swimming in 2010 and also plays wheelchair basketball. Swimming was initially supposed to help her rehabilitate but then she started playing competitively. [8]
In 2016 representing Nepal, Kunwar participated in the S6 100 meters freestyle event at the Paralympic Summer Games and finished sixth in heat two of the qualifying round. [8] She was eliminated from the competition for the slowest timing. It was a wild card entry opportunity for Kunwar at the Paralympics. [2] She finished 17th overall in the event.[ citation needed ]
In 2015, Kunwar participated in the S6 100 meters freestyle event at the IPC Swimming World Championships held at Glasgow, Great Britain. She was part of heat one of the qualifying round. [1]
Through sports and participating in various international events, Kunwar wants to help raise awareness about para sports in Nepal. She has joined movement across Nepal that asks for better infrastructure and an accessible environment for people with disabilities. [6]
In 2018, Kunwar participated in the wheelchair basketball event where she participated to all four points for Nepal Spinal Cord Injury Sports Association (NSCISA). [9]
Kunwar was given the Buddha Harmony Bimala Regmi Social Service Award in 2017 by the Buddha Harmony Foundation in Nepal. [10] This was to recognize Kunwar for her contribution towards the society as a whole.
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.
Eleanor May Simmonds, OBE is a British former Paralympian swimmer who competed in S6 events. She came to national attention when she competed in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, winning two gold medals for Great Britain. She was the youngest member of the team, at the age of 13.
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Ellie Victoria Cole, is an Australian retired Paralympic swimmer and wheelchair basketball player. After having her leg amputated due to cancer, she trained in swimming as part of her rehabilitation program and progressed more rapidly than instructors had predicted. She began competitive swimming in 2003 and first competed internationally at the 2006 IPC Swimming World Championships, where she won a silver medal. Since then, she has won medals in the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, the Commonwealth Games, the Paralympic Games, the IPC Swimming World Championships, and various national championships.
S6, SB5, SM6 are para-swimming classifications used for categorising swimmers based on their level of disability. This class includes people with a number of different types of disability including short stature, major limb impairment or loss in two limbs. This includes people with cerebral palsy, people with dwarfism and amputees. The class competes at the Paralympic Games.
S2, SB1, SM2 are para-swimming classifications used for categorizing swimmers based on their level of disability. People in this class have limited use of their arms, and no or extremely limited use of their hands, legs and trunk. Swimmers in this class have a variety of different disabilities including cerebral palsy and amputations.
S1, SB1, SM1 are para-swimming classifications used for categorising swimmers based on their level of disability. The classifications cover athletes with "very severe coordination problems in four limbs or have no use of their legs, trunk, hands and minimal use of their shoulders only". Swimmers in this class have a variety of different disabilities including cerebral palsy.
Matthew Anthony "Matt" Haanappel, is an Australian Paralympic swimmer. He was born in Wantirna, Victoria and resides in the far eastern suburbs of Melbourne. He has cerebral palsy right hemiplegia. Haanappel has represented Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, the 2013 IPC Swimming World Championships, the 2014 Pan Pacific Para Swimming Championships, the 2016 Summer Paralympics, and the 2018 Commonwealth Games. He represents the Camberwell Grammar School Aquatic club.
Mackenzie Soldan is an American wheelchair basketball and wheelchair tennis player. She represented the United States at the 2011 Parapan American Games where she won two gold medals, 2012 London Paralympics in wheelchair tennis and 2016 Rio Paralympics in wheelchair basketball. She has played for the U.S. women's wheelchair basketball team since 2013.
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Jeanette Clare Chippington, is a British Paralympic swimmer and paracanoeist. Chippington has represented Great Britain at seven Paralympics, five in swimming Summer Paralympics, 1988 Seoul, 1992 Barcelona, 1996 Atlanta, Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004. Competing as a S6 classification swimmer she favoured mainly 50 m and 100m freestyle competitions. After retiring from swimming Chippington returned to disability sport, becoming a world class paracanoeist, winning gold at the 2016 Summer Paralympics and bronze at 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
F5, also SP5, is a wheelchair sport classification that corresponds to the neurological level T8 - L1. Historically, it was known as Lower 3, or Upper 4. People in this class have some trunk function and good sitting balance. They have problems with hip function, that reduces their ability to rotate their spines.
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.
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Nepal sent a delegation to compete at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7–18 September 2016. This was the fourth time the nation had taken part in a Paralympic Games following its first appearance at the 2004 Summer Paralympics. Nepal was represented by two athletes in Rio de Janeiro: sprinter Bikram Rana and short-distance swimmer Laxmi Kunwar, who both qualified for the Paralympics by using wild card spots for their respective sports. Neither athlete advanced beyond the first round of their respective events as they both finished 17th overall in their competitions.
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Song Lingling is a Chinese Paralympic swimmer competing in the S6 class. She has won two silver and a gold paralympic medal.
Madhavi Latha Prathigudupu is a former para-athletics sportswoman who advocates for inclusion of persons with disabilities in sports and society. In 2011, she founded the Paralympic Swimming Association of Tamil Nadu, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that aims to "create awareness about the importance and rehabilitation impact of swimming". She is also the founder of the Wheelchair Basketball Federation of India (WBI), India's national wheelchair basketball body, and the founder of Yes, We Can Too, a charitable trust focused on persons with disabilities. in sports.