 Michael Dow and his dog, Hitam, displaying his five Olympic medals from the 1964 Tokyo Paralympic Games | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Nationality |  Australia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Michael Dow is an Australian Paralympic swimmer and weightlifter who won two gold, two silver and a bronze medal at the 1964 Summer Paralympics. He was one of only two Victorian athletes selected to compete at these games.
Dow contracted poliomyelitis at 4 years of age while living with his family in Borneo. The family moved to Venezuela in 1954 and returned to Melbourne Victoria in 1959. [1] His interest in sport developed through newspapers, that included articles about sporting opportunities for disabled people and achievements of people with spinal cord injuries. [2] In addition, the Victorian Paraplegic Sports Club supported local, national and international competitions for people with a disability which included the Victorian Championships held annually at Albert Park, The Australian Championships held bi-annually, and the Inaugural Commonwealth Games held in Perth Western Australia, in November 1962. This event is held every four years. [3]
Selection for the 1964 Summer Paralympics was based on Dow's outstanding results achieved at the National Championships. He competed in sprint, long-distance track, javelin, and weightlifting that was an Australian innovation, the program being developed in Perth. [4]
At the 1964 Summer Paralympics, he won two gold medals in the Men's 50 m Breaststroke incomplete class 3 and Men's 50 m Freestyle Supine incomplete class 3 events, a silver medal in Men's Weightlifting Featherweight event, a bronze medal in the Men's 50 m Freestyle Prone incomplete class 3 event., [5] and a silver medal in the 4 x 60 metre wheelchair relay. [6]
Following his outstanding results at the 1964 Paralympics, Dow then decided to retire and concentrate on his studies. [7] In 1970, he completed his Bachelor of Arts Degree at Monash University Melbourne. [8]
Dow dropped out of competition for ten years, returned in 1979 and again in 1981 to compete in the Australian Paraplegic Championships. He then retired from competitive sport. [9]
Dylan Martin Alcott, is an Australian former wheelchair tennis player, former wheelchair basketball player, radio host and motivational speaker. Alcott was a member of the Australia men's national wheelchair basketball team, known colloquially as the Australian "Rollers". At the age of 17, he became the youngest Rollers gold medal winner, at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics, and was the youngest to compete in the wheelchair basketball competition. In 2014, he returned to wheelchair tennis with the aim of participating at the 2016 Rio Paralympics, at which he won gold medals in the Men's Quad Singles and Doubles. He was named the 2016 Australian Paralympian of the Year due to his outstanding achievements at Rio.
Australia competed at the 1968 Summer Paralympics in Tel Aviv, Israel. The Games significantly expanded in 1968 when compared to previous years, as did the Australian team and the events included in the Games. Mexico City were originally to host the 1968 Paralympics, however, they were moved to Tel Aviv in Israel.
Sweden was one of twenty-eight nations that sent a delegation to the 1968 Summer Paralympics in Tel Aviv, Israel from November 4 to 13, 1968. The team finished seventeenth in the medal table and won eleven medals: one gold, six silver and four bronze. Thirty-two Swedish athletes took part in the Games; twenty-seven men and five women.
Kevin Richard Coombs, OAM PLY is an Australian wheelchair basketballer and athlete who competed at 5 Paralympics including the first Paralympic Games in 1960. He was the first Australian Aboriginal Paralympic competitor for Australia.
Bruno Moretti was an Australian Paralympic competitor.
Elaine Annette Schreiber was an Australian Paralympic table tennis player and field games athlete. She contracted Poliomyelitis as a child.
Elizabeth Mary Edmondson PLY is an Australian Paralympic competitor and current Australian Masters competitor in swimming. She became a paraplegic after contracting polio as a small child. She won several medals in the 1964 and 1968 Summer Paralympics. She subsequently retired from swimming, only taking up the sport again in 2006 to compete in the 2008 FINA World Masters Championships in Perth.
Gary Leslie Hooper, MBE is an Australian Paralympic competitor. He won seven medals at three Paralympics from 1960 to 1968.
Liesl Dorothy Tesch AM is an Australian wheelchair basketball player, sailor, and politician. She is a Labor Party member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, representing Gosford since the 2017 Gosford state by-election.
Also known as the 13th Stoke Mandeville Games, the 1964 Summer Paralympics was the 2nd Paralympic Games. Hosted in Tokyo, the games ran from 8 to 12 November. Australia won a total of 30 medals and finished fourth on the medal tally behind Italy (3rd), Great Britain (2nd) and the United States (1st). Australia competed in 6 of the 9 sports at the Games, winning medals in each of those sports, but was most successful in the pool, winning a majority of their medals in swimming events.
Brian Frederick McNicholl, OAM is a New Zealand-born Australian Paralympic powerlifter, weightlifter, wheelchair basketballer, and athlete, who won five medals at six Paralympic games from 1976 to 1996.
The Commonwealth Paraplegic Games were an international, multi-sport event involving athletes with a disability from the Commonwealth countries. The event was sometimes referred to as the Paraplegic Empire Games and British Commonwealth Paraplegic Games. Athletes were generally those with spinal injuries or polio. The Games were an important milestone in the Paralympic sports movement as they began the decline of the Stoke Mandeville Games' dominating influence. The event was first held in 1962 and disestablished in 1974. The Games were held in the country hosting the Commonwealth Games for able-bodied athletes, a tradition eventually fully adopted by the larger Olympic and Paralympic movements.
Kevin Munro is an Australian Paralympic athlete and wheelchair basketballer. At the 1968 Tel Aviv Games, he won a gold medal in the Men's 100 m Wheelchair B event and a silver medal in the Men's 4x40 m Relay open event.
Ramon (Ray) Gary Epstein, is an Australian Paralympic weightlifter and powerlifting coach. He represented Australia in weightlifting at the 1988 Seoul and 1992 Barcelona Paralympics and was Head Coach of the Australian Paralympic powerlifting team between 2003 and 2013.
Carol Lynn Cooke, is a Canadian-born Australian cyclist, swimmer and rower. A keen swimmer, she was part of the Canadian national swimming team and was hoping to be selected for the 1980 Moscow Olympics before her country boycotted the games. She moved to Australia in 1994, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998, and took up rowing in 2006, in which she narrowly missed out on being part of the 2008 Beijing Paralympics. She then switched to cycling, where she won a gold medal at the 2012 London Paralympics, two gold medals at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics and a silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
Joshua Anthony "Josh" Hose, is a wheelchair rugby player. He has won gold medals at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Paralympics and competed at the 2020 Summer Paralympics.
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.
Bruce Oliver Thwaite was an Australian Paralympic competitor. During World War II, he sustained a spinal injury when he landed on a tree after parachuting from a bomber plane over Germany. He was treated at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
Isis Holt is an Australian Paralympic athlete competing in T35 sprint events. She is affected by the condition cerebral palsy. Holt won gold medals in the 100 m and 200 m at the 2015 and 2017 World Para Athletics Championships. At the 2016 Rio Paralympics, she won two silver medals and a bronze medal and 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, two silver medals.
Jaryd Clifford is an Australian Paralympic, vision impaired, middle-distance athlete. He represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics in athletics. He won gold medals in the Men's 1500m and 5000m T13 events at the 2019 World Para Athletics Championships. Clifford represented Australia at the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, where he won silver medals in the Men's 5000m T13 and Men's Marathon T12, and a bronze medal in the Men's 1500 m T13.
