- Oscar Pistorius
Oscar Pistorius (born November 22, 1986) is a South African Paralympic runner. Known as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius is the double amputee world record holder in the 100, 200 and 400 metres events and runs with the aid of carbon fibre transtibial artificial limbs. His artificial lower legs, while enabling him to compete, have also generated claims that he has an unfair advantage over other runners.
- Tanni Grey-Thompson
Dame Carys Davina "Tanni" Grey-Thompson, DBE (born 26 July 1969, Cardiff, Wales) is a Welsh athlete and TV presenter. Born with spina bifida, Tanni is a wheelchair-user, and is considered to be one of the most successful disabled athletes in the UK. Thompson competes in events over a wide range of distances, first competing in the 100 m at the Junior National Games for Wales in 1984. Over her career to date, she has won a total of 16 Paralympic medals, including 11 golds, …
- Benoit Huot
Benoit Huot (born January 24 1984) is a Canadian Paralympic swimmer of the 21st century, who has won six gold medals for Canada, primarily in the freestyle and butterfly strokes. Hailing from Longueuil, Quebec, Huot was born with club feet, started swimming competitively at age 10 at the CAMO Natation club, where he is trained by Benoit Lebrun. In the beginning he competed alongside able-bodied swimmers and competed at two Quebec Games, earning silver in 1997.
- Shelly Woods
Shelly Woods (born 4 June 1986) is an elite British Paralympic athlete from the town of Blackpool, Lancashire. Shelly started using a wheelchair at the age of 11 after a heavy fall which injured her spinal cord. As a wheelchair athlete, she has achieved considerable success having won the Great North Run in 2005, setting a new British record for the half-marathon in the process.
- Louise Sauvage
Alix Louise Sauvage <small>OAM</small> (born 18 September 1973 in Perth, Western Australia) is an Australian paralympic athlete. Often regarded as the most renowned disabled sportswoman in the Southern Hemisphere, she won two gold medals and a silver medal at the 2000 Sydney Paralympic games in front of a home crowd. At the 2004 Olympic Games, she finished 3rd in the demonstration sport of Women's 1500 m wheelchair.
- Josh Blue
Josh Blue (born November 27, 1978) is an American comedian who was voted the "Last Comic Standing" on NBC's reality show "Last Comic Standing" during its fourth season, which aired May-August, 2006. Blue was born in Cameroon, West Africa, where his father, a university Romance Languages professor, was teaching in a mission, and grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He currently resides in Denver, Colorado.
- Aimee Mullins
Aimee Mullins (born 1976 in Allentown, Pennsylvania) is an American athlete, actress, and fashion model best known for her extraordinary collegiate-level athletic accomplishments, despite a disability that resulted in the amputation of both of her legs. Mullins was born with fibular hemimelia (missing fibula bones) and had both of her legs amputated below the knee when she was just a year old.
- Joe Soares
Joe Soares is a former all-star wheelchair rugby player for the United States who later went on to coach the Canadian paralympic team after he was cut by the U.S in 1996. This episode figures prominently in the 2005 documentary film "Murderball". Soares was born into a poor family in Portugal, and moved to Providence, Rhode Island at the age of 11. Soares lost the use of his legs after contracting childhood polio.
- Jessica Tuomela
Jessica Tuomela (born August 3, 1983) is a Canadian paralympic competitive swimmer who was born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Although blinded by retinoblastoma at the age of three, she has succeeded in competitive swimming despite her disability. Competing at the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney, Australia, Tuomela earned a silver medal in the 50-metre freestyle as well as three sixth-place finishes in the 100-meter freestyle, 100-meter backstroke and 200-meter medley.
- Sarah Reinertsen
Sarah Reinertsen is the first female amputee to complete the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. She first attempted to finish the race in 2004, but was disqualified when she failed to meet the qualifying time for the bike leg by 15 minutes. She returned in 2005 and completed the race in just over 15 hours. Besides marathons and triathlons, Sarah has also competed in bicycle races. She was born with proximal femoral focal deficiency, …
- Katie Compton
Katie Compton (born 3 December 1978) is a bicycle racer. She specializes in cyclo-cross racing and piloting a tandem with a blind partner in Paralympic events. She has the won the USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships Elite Women's title every year from 2004 to 2006. Since she takes part in Paralympic events she can not enter any bicycle races which award UCI points. Since she was unable to take part in major races before the National Championship, …
- André Viger
André Viger was a French Canadian wheelchair marathoner and Paralympic. Born in Windsor, Ontario, Viger took part in five Paralympic Games in Athletics, winning three gold, four silver and three bronze medals. Viger grew up in Sherbrooke, Quebec. In 1987, he was made a Knight of the National Order of Quebec. In 1989, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada for being "a source of encouragement for young athletes and a role model for young people everywhere".
- Jon Rydberg
Jon Rydberg is a world-class wheelchair tennis player and paralympian that hailed from Pine City, Minnesota. He was a member of the 2004 United States paralympic team that competed in Athens, Greece. In 2007, he became the top-ranked wheelchair tennis player in the United States. Also an accomplished wheelchair basketball player, Rydberg has contributed to the Rolling Timberwolves program that the Minnesota Timberwolves sponsors.
- Antonio Rebollo
Antonio Rebollo is the paralympic archer who lit the Olympic Torch by shooting an arrow over the cauldron in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.
- Jay Hoffman
James "Jay" Hoffman, Jr. is an American soccer coach and former player. He was born on January 15, 1951 in Womelsdorf, PA. He is currently Director of Coaching - Academy for the Virginia Rush. He has also been head coach of the US Paralympic soccer team since 2002.
- Steven Wilson
Steven Wilson (born 1973) is an Paralympic-level athlete, who competes for Australia. In 1986, whilst a student at Newington College, he was hit by a truck and doctors were forced to amputate his right leg just below the knee. He took up competitive running in 1997 and won two gold medals at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics.
- Shea Cowart
Shea Cowart - disabled athlete, very successful at paralympic 2002.
- Vivian Berkeley
Vivian Berkeley (born August 9th, 1941) is a Canadian blind lawn bowler, 1996 paralympic silver medalist and world class athlete.
- Sarnya Parker
Sarnya Parker OAM is an Australian paralympic athlete, and winner of a gold medal for Australia at the Sydney 2000 paralympics in the field of tandem cycling - winning both the 1 km road race and 3000 m pursuit; establishing world record times in each. Parker currently resides in Klemzig, South Australia.
- Gong Baoren
Gong Baoren is a Chinese swimmer who competed in the Sydney 2000 paralympic men's 100m breaststroke SB7 event, finishing 0.03 second behind the finalist. He was distinguished from the other competitors in that he had no arms. A popular internet download is currently circulating which features a 50m swim event which he wins.
- Kevin Davids
Kevin Davids (sometimes miscredited as Kevin Davies) is a British actor, was world Paralympic sabre fencing champion for 4 years and is best known for his role as Syd in the BBC television series I'm with Stupid (TV series).
- Javier Otxoa
Javier Otxoa Palacios (born 30 August, 1974, Barakaldo, Greater Bilbao, Basque Country) is a Spanish cyclist, formerly of the Kelme cycling team. His name is sometimes spelled Javier Ochoa in media reports. In 2000 Otxoa won a heavy mountain stage in the Tour de France on top of the Hautacam. In February 2001 a car hit him and his brother Ricardo during training. Ricardo died. Javier survived but was in a coma for a month and became seriously disabled.
- Randy Snow
Randy Snow (born 24 May 1959) is the first Paralympian to be inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame. A native of Terrell, Texas, Snow was a state-ranked tennis player as a teenager, but at the age of 16, his spine was crushed by a 1000-pound bale of hay, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. After graduating, he enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin in 1977, where he indulged in the fraternity party life, …
- Jessica Long
Jessica Long was adopted by an American couple from Baltimore, Maryland at the age of 13 months. Because of lower leg anomalies, her legs were amputated when she was 18 months old. Jessica Long was involved in many sports including gymnastics, basketball, cheerleading, ice skating, biking, trampoline, sking, and swimming. She began swimming in her grandparents’ pool before joining her first competitive team in 2002.
- Jeroen Straathof
Johannes Nicolaas Maria ("Jeroen") Straathof (born November 18 1972 in Zoeterwoude) is a retired Dutch cyclist and speed skater. Straathof was the first, and still the only, athlete in the world to represent his country at the Summer Olympics, the Winter Olympics and the Paralympics. Straathof started his sports career as a speed skater, becoming World Junior Champion in Warsaw 1992.
- Karissa Whitsell
Karissa Whitsell is an accomplished blind athlete. Karissa with her tandem partner Katie Compton, won numerous medals at the 2004 ΧΙΙ Paralympic Games in Athens Greece.
- Henry Wanyoike
Henry Wanyoike is a Kenyan athlete. He is blind and competes in the Paralympics and in marathon racing. Wanyoike is one of the world’s fastest runners. While still a child he was already being groomed to join an elite corps of athletes in a country that is known for its production of many world-class middle-distance runners over the last twenty years than any country on earth. He excelled at the 5,000 and 10,000-meter distances. In 1995, he had a mild stroke.
- Stanislav Loska
Stanislav Loska is a veteran on the Czech paralympic team. Torino 2006 was his fourth Paralympic games. In the Winter Paralympic Games in Lillehammer he won the bronze medal in the slalom. He won the same medal in the world championship in Lech in Austria. In Nagano 1998 he placed fourth and fifth.
- Rudy Garcia-Tolson
- Anthony Clarke
Anthony Clarke (born 1961) OAM, ASM is a world class judoka who has been ranked in the top 10 wordwide, in the top 3 in Australia and as the top player in South Australia. Blind since 17 he became the 1996 Paralympic Judo (96kg class) gold medallist, 1998 world blind judo champion (90kg class) and an official torch bearer at the 2000 Summer Olympics.
- Neil Fuller
Neil Fuller OAM is an Australian athlete, Paralympic competitor, and amputee. During his youth, Neil was an ambitious soccer player - gaining a position playing at state level for South Australia. It was during a soccer match his tibia and fibula were broken, as well as severing a major artery in his right leg. Becoming legally an adult during his time in hospital, he opted to have the lower part of his right leg amputated after gangrene had set in.
- Adrian Adepitan
Ade Adepitan MBE (born 27 March 1973) is a British television presenter and wheelchair basketball player. He is in a wheelchair is because he contracted polio at the age of six months. Although without the use of his legs, it has left him with strong arms, which allow him to be a keen diver. Adepitan works as a very enthusiastic television presenter for the BBC.
- Carlee Hoffman
Carlee Hoffman (born July 10, 1986) is a American female wheelchair basketball player from Cutlerville, Michigan. She plays the power forward position and was a gold medalist for the United States in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens. Hoffman is a bilateral below-knee amputee.
- Stephen Eaton
Stephen Eaton (born 15 September 1975, Toowoomba) is an Australian athlete from Queensland who competes at the national and international level in discus throwing and shot put at events such as the Paralympic Games, and International Paralympic Committee World Championships. He won Bronze for discus at the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta, and Silver for men's discus in the Athletics Australia National Championships in 1999.
- Devendra Jhajharia
Devendra Jhajharia is India's first ever gold medalist at the Paralympics. He is the one-armed javelin thrower from Rajasthan. He won it at Athens on 21 September 2004 in the javelin throw. He set up a new record with 62.15m eclipsing the old one of 59.77m. He also won the gold medal in the 8th FESPIC Games in Korea, 2002. He hails from Churu District in Rajasthan. Devendra is a Class IV employee with the Indian Railways. He had lost his left hand in an accident.
- Esther Vergeer
Esther Vergeer (born Jul 18 1981, Woerden) is a Dutch former wheelchair basketball and current wheelchair tennis player. She is four-fold Paralympics tennis champion and has been the world's top ranked player since 1999. Unbeaten since January 2003, she may be the most dominant player in any professional sports. Vergeer became paraplegic when she was 8 years old due to an otherwise successful, very risky surgery concerning hemorrhaging blood vessels around her spinal cord.
- Simona Atzori
Simona Atzori (June 18, 1974 -) is an Italian artist and dancer who was born in Milan. She was born without arms, and uses her feet to draw, write and perform all other daily activities. Attempts were made to fit Simona with prosthetic arms at an early age, but she very quickly rejected them. She has said that she found the prosthetics extremely heavy and impractical, and it was much easier to use her own feet to perform tasks.
- Mark Zupan
Mark Zupan (born May 20, 1975 in Cleveland, Ohio) is the captain of the United States quadriplegic wheelchair rugby team which competes in the Paralympic Games and the official spokesperson for Team USA. He is best known for his appearance in the 2005 film "Murderball". Mark Zupan was born in Cleveland, Ohio to his parents Thomas and Linda Zupan. He played varsity football and soccer in high school, earning him a scholarship to Florida Atlantic University.
- Luca Pancalli
Luca Pancalli (born April 16 1964 in Rome) is a sports manager and former swimmer. He is currently the Commissioner of the Italian Football Federation. After having won a national youth modern pentathlon championship, Pancalli became a quadriplegic in 1981 following a tumble from a horse during an international race in Austria. Despite this, he was still able to partially move his arms and took part to four different edition of the Paralympic Games, …
- Mark Inglis
Mark Joseph Inglis (born September 27, 1959) is a mountaineer, researcher, winemaker and motivational speaker. He holds a degree in Human Biochemistry from Lincoln University, New Zealand, and has conducted research in leukemia. He won a silver medal at the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games. He currently resides in Hanmer Springs, New Zealand with his wife Anne and their three children. In addition to being a goodwill ambassador for the Everest Rescue Trust, …