 2012 Australian Paralympic team portrait of Erdem | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Nationality |  Australia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 1 August 1970 Kayseri, Turkey | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Disability class | 0.5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Nazim Erdem, OAM (born 1 August 1970) is an Australian wheelchair rugby Paralympic gold and silver medalist. He has won two gold and two silver medals at five Paralympics from 2000 to 2016.
Nazim Erdem was born on 1 August 1970 [1] in the Turkish city of Kayseri and later immigrated to Australia with his family. [2] He became a quadriplegic at the age of 20 after diving off a pier into shallow water [1] in an effort to impress some watching girls. [3] As a youngster, he practiced holding his breath and could hold it for up to three minutes. [3] His ability to hold his breath for a long period of time saved his life as he was under water for two-and-a-half minutes before he was rescued. [3] He played Australian rules football and was an amateur boxer before the accident. [1]
In 2002 he became the first person with a spinal cord injury to paraglide solo; he was also the first person with a spinal cord injury to compete in the Targa Tasmania car rally. [1] He lives in the Melbourne suburb of Roxburgh Park, has a diploma in computer programming, and works as a peer support coordinator for the Australian Quadriplegic Association, a Victorian disability support organisation. [1] [4] Erdem is also a sports ambassador for the TAFISA World Sport for All Games. [5]
Classified as a 0.5-point player, [3] Erdem began playing wheelchair rugby in 1992. He first played for the Victorian wheelchair rugby team in 1994, and first played for the national team, the Australian Steelers, in the 1998 World Wheelchair Rugby Championships. [1] [6]
He was part of the national team at the 2000 Sydney, 2004 Athens, 2008 Beijing, 2012 London, and 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics, winning a silver medal with them at the 2000 and 2008 games and gold medals in 2012 and 2016. [7] [8] [9] At the World Wheelchair Rugby Championships, he was a member of Steelers teams that won bronze in 2002, silver in 2010 and gold in 2014. [10]
Erdem announced his retirement in December 2017 after playing 312 games over two decades for the Steelers. He indicated that he would spend more time with his family and his growing role at the Australian Quadriplegic Association. [11]
In June 2012, Erdem was named the Hume Leader's senior sports star of the week. [4] He was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in the 2014 Australia Day Honours "for service to sport as a Gold Medallist at the London 2012 Paralympic Games." [12] [13] In October 2014, he and Lydia Lassila were joint winners of the Victorian Institute of Sport Gatorade Spirit Award. [14] In 2016, Erdem was named the Hume Leader Senior Sports Star of the year. [5] In 2018, he became the first Australian to be inducted into the International Wheelchair Rugby Federation (IWRF) Hall of Fame. [15]
Wheelchair rugby is a team sport for athletes with a disability. It is practiced in over twenty-five countries around the world and is a summer Paralympic sport.
Wheelchair rugby is a sport with national representation at the Paralympic games. The Australian Team is known as the 'Steelers'.
Cameron Carr, is an Australian Paralympic wheelchair rugby player. He has won a silver medal at the 2008 Paralympics and gold medals at the 2012 and 2016 Paralympics.
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Gregory Stephen Smith, OAM is an Australian Paralympic athlete and wheelchair rugby player who won three gold medals in athletics at the 2000 Summer Paralympics, and a gold medal in wheelchair rugby at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, where he was the flag bearer at the opening ceremony.
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Jayden Warn is an Australian wheelchair rugby player. He won a gold medal at the 2016 Rio Paralympics as a member of the Australian Steelers and competed at the 2020 Summer Paralympics.
Jason Ellery is an Australian wheelchair rugby player.
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The Sweden national wheelchair rugby team represents Sweden in international wheelchair rugby. Sweden is the second most successful team in European competition, winning four gold medals at the European Championship. They have reached three Summer Paralympics, with their best finish being 5th in the 2000 Games in Sydney.
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