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Great Britain at the 1972 Summer Paralympics

Great Britain at the
1972 Summer Paralympics
Flag of the United Kingdom.svg
IPC code GBR
NPC British Paralympic Association
Website www.paralympics.org.uk
in Heidelberg
Competitors 72
Medals
Ranked 3rd
Gold Silver Bronze Total
16 15 21 52
Summer Paralympics appearances

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 President of the IPC since 2001, competed in athletics, swimming and wheelchair basketball for Great Britain at these Games.

Athletes at the Paralympics in 1972 were all afflicted by spinal cord injuries and required the use of a wheelchair. This is in contrast to later Paralympics that include events for participants that fit into any of five different disability categories; amputation, either congenital or sustained through injury or illness; cerebral palsy; wheelchair athletes; visual impairment, including blindness; Les autres, any physical disability that does not fall strictly under one of the other categories, for example dwarfism or multiple sclerosis. Each Paralympic sport then has its own classifications, dependent upon the specific physical demands of competition. Events are given a code, made of numbers and letters, describing the type of event and classification of the athletes competing.


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Wikipedia

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