Frank Ponta

Frank Ponta

Personal information
Full name	Francis Ettore Ponta
Nationality	Australia
Born	(1935-11-08)8 November 1935
Died	1 June 2011(2011-06-01) (aged 75)
Medal record Men's athletics Paralympic Games 1960 Rome Precision Javelin Wheelchair fencing Stoke Mandeville Games 1957 Stoke Mandeville Foil Novice team Paralympic Games 1960 Rome Foil Novice Individual Paralympic swimming Paralympic Games 1964 Tokyo 25 m freestyle 1968 Tel Aviv 25 m backstroke

Francis Ettore Ponta (8 November 1935 – 1 June 2011) 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.

Ponta was born in the Perth suburb of Subiaco on 8 November 1935, as the eldest of nine children. In 1947 he moved to Geraldton because his father had a job there in the building trade. He attended Christian Brothers schools in Leederville and Geraldton.

At the age of fourteen or fifteen, he injured his back while diving off a wharf in Geraldton, which aggravated a tumour in his spinal column. The tumour was diagnosed when he was 17 and after it was removed, he lost the use of both his legs. He entered the spinal injury ward at Royal Perth Hospital in 1954 for rehabilitation, where he was trained in sports by John "Johno" Johnston.

When Ponta began his competitive career, he played several sports, in common with most paraplegic athletes at the time. He competed in basketball, pentathlon, swimming and fencing. Ponta was a member of the first national wheelchair basketball team for Australia, formed in 1956, mostly composed of players from the spinal injury ward of Royal Perth Hospital.

In 1957, Ponta competed at the Stoke Mandeville Games, the precursor to the Paralympic Games. He and teammate Bill Mather-Brown won a gold medal in Foil Novice team at the wheelchair fencing event. In the same year, Ponta and Mather-Brown also competed at the Welsh Challenge Cup, where the pair also won gold.

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