Racing for Eagle High School - 2008
|
My name is Jacob Van Hemelryck. I am a 17-year-old wheelchair athlete born with Spina Bifida. I have competed in sports on a national level since the age of six and internationally since 2006. I compete in track and field, swimming, power lifting, basketball, road racing, and table tennis. I also enjoy alpine skiing, archery, hand-cycling, hunting, fishing, football, baseball, tennis, and other recreational activities.
I hope you will take a moment to look at my website. Hopefully you will find some useful information and help support my dream to represent the United States as a member of the US Paralympic Team. You can help by making a tax deductible donation to my Athlete Development Fund.
HOW THE PARALYMPICS EVOLVED
Sir Ludwig Guttmann, a German born neurosurgeon, emigrated to England in 1939 in order to escape Nazi occupation. Dr. Guttmann introduced a new medical approach using sport as a principal therapy in the total rehabilitation of paralyzed patients. He organized an athletic competition in Stoke Mandeville for World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries. What began as rehabilitative recreation evolved into athletic competition.
By 1960 the movement had evolved into the first Olympic style event for athletes with physical disabilities now known as the Paralympic Games. Named for its mission to parallel the Olympic Games combining the Latin word "para" (meaning "with") and the word "Olympics."
Today it includes athletes with physical disabilities which include parapeligia, quadrapeligia, blindness, dwarfism, and other physical disabilities. More than 4,000 athletes from around the world now compete in the Paralympics making it the second largest sporting event in the world next to the Olympic Games.
|
|
