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Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Nickname | Ria | ||||||||||||||||||||
Nationality | Germany | ||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Dresden, Germany | 14 February 1982||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||
Country | Germany | ||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | Wheelchair basketball | ||||||||||||||||||||
Disability class | 1.0 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Event | Women's team | ||||||||||||||||||||
Team | SV Reha Augsburg | ||||||||||||||||||||
Coached by | Birgit Meitner | ||||||||||||||||||||
Achievements and titles | |||||||||||||||||||||
Paralympic finals | 2012 Summer Paralympics | ||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Maria Kühn (born 14 February 1982) is a 1.0-point wheelchair basketball player who plays for SV Reha Augsburg in the German wheelchair basketball league. She has also played in the German national team, with which she won two European titles, was runner-up at 2010 World Championships, and won a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. Having won the gold medal, President Joachim Gauck awarded the team the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt (Silver Laurel Leaf), Germany's highest sporting honour.
Kühn was born in Dresden, Germany on 14 February 1982. [1] At the age of 20, after finishing high school, she took a holiday in the United States. While horseback riding in Monument Valley, she had a bad fall and became paralysed from the fifth thoracic vertebra down. [2]
She earned a degree in management student from the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW). Since 2011, she has worked in Human Resources at the Gesellschaft für Technische Überwachung (GTÜ) (Society for Technical Supervision). [2]
Kühn is a 1.0-point wheelchair basketball player. [1] Before her accident, she was physically active with swimming, cycling and running. Afterwards, she took up wheelchair dancing as a form of exercise, but later switched to wheelchair basketball, although she had never been much interested in ball sports. She moved to Ludwigsburg to play for SV Reha Augsburg in the German national league in 2009, [2] but switched to the Frankfurt Mainhatten Skywheelers for the 2011/12 season. [3] Since 2009, her coach has been Brigit Meitner. [1]
Kühn joined the national team in 2009, while in Stuttgart, [4] where she now lives. On 11 July 2009 during the International Paralympic Day celebration in Berlin, the team showed up at the Brandenburg Gate before 58,000 visitors, and Kühn gave President Horst Köhler a demonstration of the sport. [5] The team won gold at the European Wheelchair Basketball Championship in Stoke Mandeville, England, in 2009, and silver at the Wheelchair Basketball World Championship in Birmingham, England the following year. [6] In 2011, they again won the European Championship, which this time was held in Nazareth, Israel. [7]
In June 2012, Kühn was named as one of the team that competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympic Games in London. [7] In the Gold Medal match, the team faced the Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team, [8] a team that had defeated them 48–46 in Sydney just a few months before. [9] They defeated the Australians 44–58 in front of a capacity crowd of over 12,000 at the North Greenwich Arena to win the gold medal, [8] the first that Germany had won in women's wheelchair basketball at the Paralympic Games since Stoke Mandeville in 1984. [10] [11] They were awarded a Silbernes Lorbeerblatt (Silver Laurel Leaf), Germany's highest sporting honour, by President Joachim Gauck in November 2012, [12] named Team of the Year for 2012. [10]
Silbernes Lorbeerblatt, the highest sports award in Germany, was endowed on 23 June 1950 by the German President Theodor Heuss. It is awarded to athletes and teams of exemplary character that have won medals at Olympic and Paralympic Games, won important international titles like the football World Cup, or placed several times at international championships.
Gesche Schünemann is a German former wheelchair basketball player and Paralympian who was part of the team that took the silver medal in the women's wheelchair basketball at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, and the gold medal-winning team in wheelchair basketball at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London.
Edina Müller is a German 2.5 point wheelchair basketball player and KL1 canoeist. She played for ASV Bonn in the German wheelchair basketball league, and for the national team. As part of the German women's national wheelchair basketball team, she won bronze at the 2006 World Cup in Amsterdam, won three time European champions, a silver medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, and a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. The team was voted 2008 Team of the Year in disabled sports, and Horst Köhler presented it with Germany's highest sports award, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt. President Joachim Gauck awarded the team a second Silver Leaf after it won the gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics. Müller was also a two-time U.S. champion (2006-2008) with her college team Illinois Fighting Illini at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and helped ASV Bonn win the European Cup in Valladolid, Spain in 2009. From 2011 to 2014 she played for Hamburger SV.
Johanna Welin is a Swedish-born German 2.0 point wheelchair basketball player. She played for USC Munich in the German wheelchair basketball league, and for the national team that won the gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, after which President Joachim Gauck awarded the team with the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt.
Annabel Breuer is a wheelchair fencer and 1.5 point wheelchair basketball player. She has played for SKV Ravensburg and Sabres Ulm in the German wheelchair basketball league. In December 2012 she was contracted to play for first division club RSV Lahn-Dill as well as Sabres Ulm. She has also played the national team, with which she won two European titles, was runner-up at 2010 World Championships, and won a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. After the London Games, President Joachim Gauck awarded the team Germany's highest sporting honour, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt.
Mareike Miller is a 4.5 point wheelchair basketball player, who played for the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in the United States. She also plays for the German national team, with which she won two European titles, was runner-up at 2010 and 2014 World Championships, won a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London and won a silver medal at the Rio 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro. President Joachim Gauck awarded the team Germany's highest sporting honour, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt, twice. Miller is part of the LGBTQ+ community.
Britt Dillmann is a 1.0-point wheelchair basketball forward, who plays for RSV Lahn-Dill in the German wheelchair basketball league. She has also played for the national team, winning a silver medal at the 1988 Summer Paralympics in Seoul. She retired soon afterwards, but staged a comeback in 2011, rejoining the national team, which went on to win the European championships, and then a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. President Joachim Gauck awarded the team Germany's highest sporting honour, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt.
Annika Zeyen-Giles is a former 1.5-point wheelchair basketball player, who has played for ASV Bonn, RSV Lahn-Dill and BG Baskets Hamburg in the German wheelchair basketball league, and for the University of Alabama in the United States. She has represented her country a total of 382 times in which she won six European titles, was the runner-up at 2010 and 2014 World Championships, won silver medals at the 2008 Summer Paralympic Games in Beijing and 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, and won a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, for which President Joachim Gauck awarded the team Germany's highest sporting honour, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt . Following the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, Zeyen retired from wheelchair basketball to pursue alternative sporting challenges as an individual athlete.
Tracey Ferguson is a Canadian Paralympic wheelchair basketball player. She has won several gold medals including at three different Paralympic Games.
Maya Lindholm is a 2.5 point wheelchair basketball player, who played with the German national team that won a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. It also won a European title in 2011 and was runner-up in 2013. President Joachim Gauck awarded the team Germany's highest sporting honour, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt.
Holger Glinicki is a German wheelchair basketball coach, who coached Hamburger SV. He was assistant coach of the German women's national team from 2003 to 2005. He has been coach of the team since 2006, during which time it has won five European championships, a silver medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing and a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London.
Marina Mohnen is a 4.5-point wheelchair basketball player, who plays for Rhine River Rhinos Wiesbaden in Germany, and previously played for the Mainhatten Skywheelers, RBC Köln 99ers, BAD.S. Quartu Sant' Elena und S. Stefano Sport. She also played with the German national team that won the European title in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2015 and was runner-up in 2013. It was also runner-up at the IWBF World Championship in Birmingham in 2010 and in Toronto 2014. She won a silver medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing and the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio, and a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. The team was voted 2008 Team of the Year in disabled sports, and President Horst Köhler presented it with Germany's highest sports award, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt. President Joachim Gauck awarded the team a second Silver Leaf after it won the gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics and at the Summer Paralympics in 2016.
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Simone Kues is a German 1.0 point national wheelchair basketball player who plays in the wheelchair basketball league for Hamburg SV. She joined the national team, and participated in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens, at which the German team came fourth. She won bronze at the World Wheelchair Basketball Championships in Amsterdam in 2006. Her team were won the European championship in 2005, 2007 and 2009. She won a silver medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing. The women's national team were voted Team of the Year in disabled sports in 2008, and President Horst Köhler awarded them the Silver Laurel Leaf, Germany's highest German sports award.
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