Michael Shelton

Last updated

Michael Shelton
Personal information
NationalityBritish
BornAround 1941
Newstead/ Kirkby/ Annesley
DiedJanuary 2022 (aged 8081)
Newstead
SpouseIris Turner
Relative(s)victor shelton, tony shelton, Tommy shelton, annie shelton, Arthur shelton + 2 more
Medal record
Representing Flag of the United Kingdom.svg  Great Britain
Paralympic Games
Snooker
Gold medal icon (G initial).svg 1964 Tokyo Men's open
Gold medal icon (G initial).svg 1968 Tel Aviv Men's open
Gold medal icon (G initial).svg 1972 Heidelberg Men's paraplegic open
Silver medal icon (S initial).svg 1960 Rome Men's open
Bronze medal icon (B initial).svg 1976 Toronto Men's 2-5
Lawn bowls
Gold medal icon (G initial).svg 1976 Toronto Men's singles wh

Michael Shelton is a British sportsman who competed at the Summer Paralympic Games five times between 1960 and 1976 in snooker and other sports. He won six Paralympic medals, four gold, a silver and a bronze. [1] He also won gold at the 1974 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games. [2]

Contents

Shelton was from Newstead, Nottinghamshire and had been a miner at Newstead Colliery. His back was injured in 1958 by a roof fall, and he was paralysed from the waist down. [3] [4] In 1969 he married Iris Turner, who had been a nursing sister on his ward when he was in hospital. [5]

He played for the Lodge Moor Hospital paraplegic snooker team, which in 1974 was refused entry to the Sheffield and District Works Sports Association league, on the basis that they would gain unfair advantage from playing all of their fixtures at their home venue, apparently failing to acknowledge that the team would be unable to play at other venues with stairs or limited space around the tables. The team was subsequently given the chance to participate in the Sheffield Social Snooker League and play all their games at their own home base. [6]

Paralympic career

In 1960, at the inaugural Paralympic Games in Rome, Shelton won a silver medal in the snooker, he had also competed in the precision javelin throw and shot put C where he finished 41st and 24th respectively in the events. [7] He followed this up with three consecutive gold medals, at the 1964 Tokyo Paralympics, [8] 1968 Tel Aviv Paralympics, [9] and 1972 Heidelberg Paralympics. [10]

At the 1976 Toronto Paralympics, Shelton won bronze in the Men's 2-5 Snooker, [11] but took the gold medal in the lawn bowls, men's singles wh. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1964 Summer Paralympics</span> Multi-parasport event in Tokyo, Japan

The 1964 Summer Paralympics, originally known as the 13th International Stoke Mandeville Games and also known as Paralympic Tokyo 1964, were the second Paralympic Games to be held. They were held in Tokyo, Japan, and were the last Summer Paralympics to take place in the same city as the Summer Olympics until the 1988 Summer Paralympics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Newstead, Nottinghamshire</span> Village and civil parish in Nottinghamshire, England

Newstead is a village and civil parish in Nottinghamshire, England in the borough of Gedling. It is situated between the city of Nottingham and the towns of Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Sutton-in-Ashfield and Hucknall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Snooker at the 1972 Summer Paralympics</span>

Snooker at the 1972 Summer Paralympics consisted of two men's events. The competitions were held at the sports grounds of the Institute for Sport and Sports Science of the University of Heidelberg and the National Institute for Sport in August 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Snooker at the 1964 Summer Paralympics</span>

Snooker at the 1964 Summer Paralympics consisted of a men's event. It was held at the National Gymnasium, Tokyo from 9 to 12 November 1964.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malta at the 1964 Summer Paralympics</span> Malta in 1964 Summer Paralympics

Malta participated in the 1964 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, Japan. The country sent a delegation of two male athletes. C. Markham competed in both athletics and snooker, while G. Portelli competed in snooker.

Ralph G. Foster is a British athlete and Paralympic Games gold medal winner. After an accident in his late twenties left him a paraplegic he eventually became involved in disabled sports. He was a swimmer, snooker player and lawn bowler. He represented Great Britain in lawn bowling at the 1988 Summer Paralympics in Seoul and won a gold medal. Ralph died on 3 May 2021 after a long illness.

The 1968 Summer Paralympics was an international multi-sport event held in Tel Aviv, Israel, from November 4 to 13, 1968, in which athletes with physical disabilities competed against one another. The Paralympics are run in parallel with the Olympic Games; these Games were originally planned to be held alongside the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, but two years prior to the event the Mexican government pulled out due to technical difficulties. At the time, the event was known as the 17th International Stoke Mandeville Games. The Stoke Mandeville Games were a forerunner to the Paralympics first organized by Sir Ludwig Guttmann in 1948. This medal table ranks the competing National Paralympic Committees (NPCs) by the number of gold medals won by their athletes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Britain at the 1972 Summer Paralympics</span> Sporting event delegation

Great Britain sent a delegation to compete at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, West Germany. Teams from the nation are referred to by International Paralympic Committee (IPC) as Great Britain despite athletes from the whole of the United Kingdom, including those from Northern Ireland, being eligible. They sent seventy two competitors, forty seven male and twenty five female. The team won fifty-two medals—sixteen gold, fifteen silver and twenty-one bronze—to finish third in the medal table behind West Germany and the United States. Philip Craven, the former President of the IPC, competed in athletics, swimming and wheelchair basketball for Great Britain at these Games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daphne Ceeney</span> Australian Paralympic athlete (1934–2016)

Daphne Jean Hilton was an Australian Paralympic competitor. She was the first Australian woman to compete at the Paralympic Games. She won fourteen medals in three Paralympics in archery, athletics, fencing, swimming, and table tennis from 1960 to 1968.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roy Fowler (Paralympian)</span> Australian Paralympic competitor

Roy Fowler was an Australian Paralympic competitor, who won ten medals at six Paralympics from 1964 to 1988.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Hooper (Paralympian)</span> Australian Paralympic athlete

Gary Leslie Hooper, MBE is an Australian Paralympic competitor. He won seven medals at three Paralympics from 1960 to 1968.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australia at the 1964 Summer Paralympics</span> Sporting event delegation

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1964 Summer Paralympics medal table</span>

The 13th International Stoke Mandeville Games, later known as the 1964 Summer Paralympics, was an international multi-sport event held in Tokyo, Japan, from November 3 to 12, 1964, in which paraplegic and tetraplegic athletes competed against one another. The Stoke Mandeville Games were a forerunner to the Paralympics first organized by Sir Ludwig Guttmann in 1948. This medal table ranks the competing National Paralympic Committees (NPCs) by the number of gold medals won by their athletes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commonwealth Paraplegic Games</span>

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.

Eric Magennis is an Australian Paralympic lawn bowls player and archer. He first represented Australia in lawn bowls at the 1970 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in Edinburgh, where he won a pairs gold medal. At the 1972 Heidelberg Paralympics, he participated in archery and became the first Australian to win a gold medal in the lawn bowls Men's Singles event. He won two further Paralympic gold medals, one with Bruce Thwaite at the 1976 Toronto Games in the Men's Pairs wh event and the other with Roy Fowler at the 1984 New York/Stoke Mandeville Games in the Men's Pairs paraplegic event. He retired from international competition in 1986, having won 78 out of the 85 games which he played over his 16-year career.

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.

John Newton is a Paralympic athlete from Australia. He competed in Wheelchair Fencing, Snooker and Table Tennis at the 1968 Tel Aviv Paralympics, winning a bronze medal in Snooker, after losing in the semi-final to the eventual gold medalist, Michael Shelton, of Great Britain. At the 1984 New York/Stoke Mandeville Paralympics he competed in Lawn Bowls, winning a bronze medal in the men's singles A6/8 event.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Snooker at the Summer Paralympics</span>

In September 1943, the British government asked neurologist Ludwig Guttmann to establish the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire. When the centre opened in 1944, Guttmann was appointed its director and held the position until 1966. Sport was introduced as part of the total rehabilitation programme for patients at the centre, starting with darts, snooker, punchball, and skittles, followed by archery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenya at the 1980 Summer Paralympics</span> Sporting event delegation

Kenya competed at the 1980 Summer Paralympics in Arnhem, Netherlands. The seventeen member strong tem competed in athletics, weightlifting, lawn bowls and table tennis, claiming a gold medal and two silver medals. Lucy Wanjiru 's gold in the Women's Javelin 3 event was the first gold earned by a Kenyan woman at the Paralympic Games.

Tommy Taylor was a British Paralympic athlete who won sixteen medals across five sports, including ten gold medals. Taylor was treated by Ludwig Guttmann after an accident in 1956 caused severe paralysis. He went on to compete at numerous Paralympic Games, finding particular success in para table tennis from Rome 1960 to Arnhem 1980. Eight of Taylor's gold medals came in table tennis, along with one in snooker and one in lawn bowls.

References

  1. "Michael Shelton". Paralympic.org. International Paralympic Committee. Archived from the original on 29 July 2021.
  2. "Shelton and Haslam defend olympic titles". Snooker Scene. August 1976. p. 15.
  3. "TOKYO GOLD". bufvc.ac.uk. British Universities Film & Video Council. Archived from the original on 22 February 2017. Retrieved 8 February 2016. Michael Shelton, a paraplegic miner, wins a gold medal in the paraplegic Olympic Games
  4. "Notts. man in the Tokyo wheel-chair Olympic games". Nottingham Evening Post. 7 November 1964. p. 8.
  5. "Went to hospital and found a wife". Nottingham Guardian. 29 September 1969. p. 5.
  6. "Offload". Community Care. IPC Building and Contract Journals. 4 September 1974. p. 11.
  7. "Snooker (1960)". paralympic.org. International Paralympic Committee. Archived from the original on 7 December 2019. Retrieved 16 August 2022.
  8. "Snooker (1964)". paralympic.org. International Paralympic Committee. Retrieved 16 August 2022.
  9. "Snooker (1968)". paralympic.org. International Paralympic Committee. Retrieved 16 August 2022.
  10. "Snooker (1972)". paralympic.org. International Paralympic Committee. Archived from the original on 1 December 2019. Retrieved 16 August 2022.
  11. "Snooker (1976)". paralympic.org. International Paralympic Committee. Retrieved 31 December 2019.
  12. "Lawn Bowls at the Toronto 1976 Paralympic Games". IPC Historical Results Archive . Retrieved 16 August 2022.