Sir Philip Craven
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Sir Philip Craven MBE |
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Craven in 2012
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| 2nd President of the International Paralympic Committee | |
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Assumed office 8 December 2001 |
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| Preceded by | Robert Steadward |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
4 July 1950 Bolton, England |
| Nationality | English |
| Residence | United Kingdom |
| Education | Bolton School |
| Alma mater | University of Manchester |
| Occupation | Sports administrator |
Sir Philip Craven MBE (born 4 July 1950) is an English sports administrator and former athlete. He is the second and current President of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).
Craven was born on 4 July 1950 in Bolton, England. He was educated at Bolton School Boys' Division, where he was a keen swimmer, cricketer and tennis player. In 1966, at the age of 16, he fell during a rock-climbing expedition at Wilton Quarries, Bolton. The accident left him without the use of his legs. He studied geography at the University of Manchester, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1972.
Craven represented Great Britain in wheelchair basketball at five editions of the Paralympic Games, from 1972 to 1988. He also competed in track and field athletics and swimming at the 1972 Games.
He won gold at the wheelchair basketball World Championships in 1973, and bronze in 1975, as well as two gold medals (1971, 1974) and a silver (1993) at the European Championships. He also won gold at the European Champions Cup in 1994, and gold at the Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in 1970.
In 1980, alongside Horst Strohkendl and Stan Labanowich, Craven played a vital role in the development of a new classification system for wheelchair basketball athletes. Wheelchair basketball rejected its medically based classification system consisting of 3 classes, a system that was founded upon principles that forced athletes to depend on medical examinations. This progress led to a new 4-class functional system, which was democratically voted in 1982. Due to this, wheelchair basketball was increasingly associated with sport as opposed to medicine and rehabilitation, although both still play an important secondary role.
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