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| Born | 20 July 1978 Lingen, Lower Saxony, West Germany | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Sport | Paralympic cycling | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Disability | Spinal cord injury | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Disability class | LC3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Natalie Simanowski (born 20 July 1978) is a German retired Paralympic cyclist who competed at international elite competitions. She is a triple world champion in cycling and a double Paralympic silver medalist. Simanowski was a former middle-distance runner.
She was born in 1978 in Lingen in Germany. She became a middle-distance athlete competing as a national level marathon runner and she became a paediatric nurse. [1]
On 25 June 2003, Simanowski had finished work at a hospital outpatient department in Munich and she ran to her car to put her work documents in the boot of her car. As she opened the boot, she was attacked by someone described as "a psychopath" who stabbed her twice in the spinal cord between her eleventh and twelfth thoracic vertebrae and narrowly missed her left lung with a butcher's knife. [2] This caused her to have an incomplete spinal cord injury. [3] [2]
The perpetrator of the knife attack was caught by the police three days later. He was diagnosed with schizophrenic psychosis as a result of drug abuse and had voices in his head telling him to kill a woman which was his motive for the attack on Simanowski. When questioned by police, the attacker said that after the incident he went back to an apartment in the city centre and went to sleep. [4] [5]
Simanowski had a damaged spine and she lost the feeling in her lower limbs. She spent two years in hospital. [1]
After she got in contact with Adelbert Kromer, who was the national coach, she took up cycling and was soon training two hours each day. [1] Simanowski refers to this change in her routine as her "second life". [2]
In 2006 she was cycling at the 2006 IPC Cycling World Championships where she contested the time-trial and the road-race. She won the 16.8 km women's time trial Women for the LC3-4 – CP3 classification, beating Barbara Buchan of the US. [6]
In 2007 the German Disabled Sports Association recognised her achievement and announced that she and Mathias Mester were the Disabled Athletes of the Year. [7]
Simanowski is a triple World champion in cycling. She is a double Paralympic silver medallist at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing where she gained the medals in the time trail and the individual pursuit. [8]
She published her biography, Wieder Aufstehen, that she wrote with assistance in 2009. [9]
The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the Games of the Paralympiad, is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of disabilities. There are Winter and Summer Paralympic Games, which since the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, are held almost immediately following the respective Olympic Games. All Paralympic Games are governed by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).
Susan Lilian Primrose Cunliffe-Lister, Countess of Swinton, Baroness Masham of Ilton, was a British crossbench member of the House of Lords, disability campaigner and Paralympic athlete. She was the founder and life-long president of the Spinal Injuries Association. She was Vice President of the Snowdon Trust, founded by the Earl of Snowdon, which provides grants and scholarships for students with disabilities. Her 53 years' membership of the House of Lords was the longest of any female peer.
Verena Bentele is a blind German Paralympic biathlete and cross-country skier. She studied at the Carl-Strehl Schule, a special school for the blind and partially sighted in Marburg, Germany. She won her first Paralympic medals at the 1998 Winter Paralympics, followed by four gold medals at the 2002 Winter Paralympics, as well as two gold and one bronze medal at the 2006 Winter Paralympics She was also winner of the Combined World Cup in Biathlon und Cross-Country in 2006.
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.
Inbal Pezaro is an Israeli Paralympic swimmer.
Theresa Goh Rui SiBBM is a Singaporean swimmer and Paralympic medalist, with a bronze at the SB4 100m breaststroke at the 2016 Summer Paralympics. She holds the world records for the SB4 50 metres and 200 metres breaststroke events.
Dame Sarah Joanne Storey, is a British Paralympic athlete in cycling and swimming, and a multiple gold medalist in the Paralympic Games, and six times British (able-bodied) national track champion. Her total of 28 Paralympic medals including 17 gold medals makes her the most successful and most decorated British Paralympian of all time as well as one of the most decorated Paralympic athletes of all time. She has the unique distinction of winning five gold medals in Paralympics before turning 19.
Mathias Mester is a Paralympian athlete from Germany competing mainly in category F40 throwing events.
Disability sports classification is a system that allows for fair competition between people with different types of disabilities.
Para-alpine skiing classification is the classification system for para-alpine skiing designed to ensure fair competition between alpine skiers with different types of disabilities. The classifications are grouped into three general disability types: standing, blind and sitting. Classification governance is handled by International Paralympic Committee Alpine Skiing. Prior to that, several sport governing bodies dealt with classification including the International Sports Organization for the Disabled (ISOD), International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation (ISMWSF), International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA) and Cerebral Palsy International Sports and Recreation Association (CP-ISRA). Some classification systems are governed by bodies other than International Paralympic Committee Alpine Skiing, such as the Special Olympics. The sport is open to all competitors with a visual or physical disability. It is not open to people with intellectual disabilities.
Para-Nordic skiing classification is the classification system for para-Nordic skiing which includes the biathlon and cross-country events. The classifications for Para-Nordic skiing mirrors the classifications for Para-Alpine skiing with some exceptions. A functional mobility and medical classification is in use, with skiers being divided into three groups: standing skiers, sit skiers and visually impaired skiers. International classification is governed by International Paralympic Committee, Nordic Skiing (IPC-NS). Other classification is handled by national bodies. Before the IPC-NS took over classification, a number of organizations handled classification based on the type of disability.
Natalie Smith is an Australian Paralympic shooter. At the 2012 Summer Paralympics, she won a bronze medal. She also represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics and the 2020 Summer Paralympics.
LW12 is a para-alpine and para-Nordic sit skiing sport class defined by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). An LW12 skier needs to meet a minimum of one of several conditions including a single below knee but above ankle amputation, monoplegia that exhibits similar to below knee amputation, legs of different length where there is at least a 7 centimetres difference, combined muscle strength in the lower extremities less than 71. For international competitions, classification is done through IPC Alpine Skiing or IPC Nordic Skiing. For sub-international competitions, classification is done by a national federation such as Alpine Canada. For para-alpine, this class is subdivided into two subclasses.: LW12.1 and LW12.2. A new sit-skier competitor with only national classification will compete as LW12.2 in international competitions until they have been internationally classified.
Anna Katharina Schaffelhuber is a German para-alpine skier. At the 2014 Winter Paralympics she won five gold medals, becoming only the second athlete to sweep the alpine skiing events.
Germany competed at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 September to 18 September 2016. The first places the team qualified were for four athletes in sailing events. They also qualified athletes in archery, cycling, equestrian, paracanoeing, paratriathlon, rowing and wheelchair basketball.
Peggy Assinck is a Canadian ice sledge hockey athlete and neuroscientist. She competed in the inaugural IPC Ice Sledge Hockey Women's International Cup in 2014.
Iran competed at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 September to 18 September 2016.
F8, also SP8, is a standing wheelchair sport classification open to people with spinal cord injuries, with inclusion based on a functional classification on a points system for lower limb functionality. Sportspeople in this class need to have less than 70 points. The class has largely been used in Australia and the United States. F8 has largely been eliminated because of a perceived lack of need internationally for a standing wheelchair class. Sports this class participates in include athletics, swimming and wheelchair basketball. In athletics, participation is mostly in field events.
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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