Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nationality | Australian | ||||||||||||||||||||
Born | 29 March 1943 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
|
Terry Mason (born 29 March 1943) [1] is an Australian Paralympic athlete and weightlifter, who won two bronze medals at two Paralympics.
Mason grew up in the New South Wales town of Lithgow, and participated in several sports in the local area as a child and young adult, such as football, field hockey, swimming, athletics and wrestling. At the age of 26, he was injured in an accident resulting in him being in a wheelchair. After the accident, Jack Wilkinson encouraged him to become involved in wheelchair sports to maintain his physical fitness. [2]
Two years after the accident, he was selected for the Australian team for the Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in Edinburgh, but did not attend the event. [2] At the 1972 Heidelberg Games, he competed in athletics and weightlifting, winning a bronze medal in the Men's Pentathlon 3 event. [3] At the 1974 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in Dunedin, New Zealand, he won gold medals in weightlifting and the men's pentathlon. [2] At the 1976 Toronto Games, he competed in athletics and weightlifting events, winning a bronze medal in the Men's Light-featherweight event. [3]
He coaches and promotes wheelchair basketball in the Taree area. [1] He assisted David Hall, a paralympic wheelchair gold medallist, early in his career. [4] He is included in the list of Lithgow sporting champions. [2]
Francis Ettore Ponta was an Australian Paralympic competitor and coach. He competed in several sports including basketball, pentathlon, swimming and fencing. A paraplegic, he lost the use of both his legs after a tumour was removed from his spinal column when he was a teenager. Ponta was a member of Australia's first national wheelchair basketball team, and is credited with expanding the sport of wheelchair basketball in Western Australia. At the end of his competitive career, he became a coach, working with athletes such as Louise Sauvage, Priya Cooper, Madison de Rozario, Bruce Wallrodt and Bryan Stitfall. He died on 1 June 2011 at the age of 75 after a long illness.
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.
Australia sent a team to compete at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, West Germany. Australian won 25 medals - 6 gold, 9 silver, and 10 bronze medals in six sports. Australia finished 11th on the gold medal table and 9th on the total medal table.
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.
Australia has participated in every Summer Paralympic Games since the inception of the Paralympics in the year 1960. The 1976 Paralympic Games in Toronto was Australia's fifth Paralympic Games. Australia competed in 10 out of the 13 sports and were able to win medals in six of these sports. There were 44 athletes representing Australia at the Games with a number of these athletes participating in multiple sports. Of the 44 athletes, 34 were males and 10 were females. As a team, Australia won 41 medals, 16 of which were gold. This placed it just outside the top 10 in 11th position at the end of the Games. The Australian team won more gold medals at the 1976 Paralympic Games than at any of the previous four Paralympic Games. 26 athletes finished on the podium in their respective events. This represents more than half the number of athletes that Australia sent to Toronto. Six world records were broken by Australian athletes on their way to winning their respective events.
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.
Gary Leslie Hooper, MBE is an Australian Paralympic competitor. He won seven medals at three Paralympics from 1960 to 1968.
Lorraine McCoulough-Fry was an Australian Paralympic swimmer, athlete and table tennis player.
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.
Australia competed at the 1980 Summer Paralympics in Arnhem, Netherlands. It was the 6th Summer Paralympic Games in which Australia had competed. These Games were the biggest Paralympics yet, with 1,973 people participating. Of those participants, 57 were Australian. The team was made up of 45 men and 12 women, and was Australia's largest team to compete at any Paralympic Games so far.
Julie Elizabeth Russell is an Australian Paralympic athlete, powerlifter and wheelchair basketballer.
John Martin is an Australian Paralympic archer, athlete, table tennis player, wheelchair basketballer and wheelchair fencer who won three silver medals at five Paralympics. He was born in England and emigrated to Australia with his family at the age of 13.
Eric Cyril Russell, MBE is an Australian Paralympic athlete, coach, and administrator.
New Zealand sent a 12 sportspeople strong delegation to the 1976 Olympiad for the Physically Disabled in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. At these Games, New Zealand won 13 medals at the 1976 Summer Paralympics: 7 golds, 1 silver, and 5 bronze medals. Eve Rimmer was the most decorated Paralympian at these Games, winning 5 gold medals in athletics.
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.
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.
Raymond Barrett was an Indigenous Australian Paralympic athlete left a paraplegic following a car accident. Prior to this he was a champion juvenile athlete in able-bodied sports. A bronze medalist at the 1972 Summer Paralympics Heidelberg Germany, a high achiever at the Stoke Mandeville Games England, Commonwealth Paraplegic Games, National Paraplegic and Quadriplegic Games, FESPIC Games and State selection trials. A sporting complex in the Sutherland Shire of Sydney is named in his honor. The people of this Shire were his 'significant others'.
Kevin Cunningham was an Australian Paralympic athlete. A member of Australia's first Paralympic Games team, he participated at the 1960 Rome and 1968 Tel Aviv Paralympic Games.
The second Commonwealth Paraplegic Games were held in Kingston, Jamaica from 14 to 20 August 1966. There were 133 athletes from 10 countries. The Games were opened by Prince Philip.
The fourth Commonwealth Paraplegic Games were held in Dunedin, New Zealand from 13 to 19 January 1974. The Games were opened by Sir Denis Blundell, Governor-General of New Zealand.