 Photographer: Invacare
Date: 21 Jun 2009 |  Photographer: Invacare
Date: 21 Jun 2009 |  Photographer: Rien Hokken
Date: 07 Jun 2009 |  Photographer: None / Not Applicable
Date: 30 Mar 2009 |  Photographer: None / Not Applicable
Date: 01 May 2009 | |
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| 21 Jun 2009 | |
| Invacare International Symposium: Integration and Sports |
When it comes to integration and sports, wheelchair tennis offers an ideal model, with the two bounce rule allowing players to play with able-bodied family, friends and colleagues and to integrate in to tennis leagues and tournaments.
International Wheelchair Tennis Association President Martin McElhatton compères this year’s Invacare International Symposium and introduces a host of highly respected figures in the areas of sport and disability, with Californian Brad Parks, the founder of wheelchair tennis in 1976, opening the Conference with an introduction to the significance of the two bounce rule.
Parks is one of four former Paralympians speaking at this year’s conference, including Invacare World Team Cup Ambassador Rainer Kuschall, a multi-sport, multi-medallist in seven Paralympics who still epitomises Invacare’s “Yes You Can” ethos with his amazing motor racing career in a car he controls using his breath.
Mr Kuschall's racing car will be on display at the City of Nottingham Tennis Centre during the Invacare World Team Cup.
Former wheelchair basketball star Ade Adepitan, an accomplished actor and TV presenter, is two years in to his own wheelchair tennis career that he hopes will see him become a two-sport Paralympian in London in 2012. Adepitan talks on the importance of building relationships and integration with the media and continually encouraging young talent. The 2012 theme continues with a presentation from Piers Jones, from LOCOG, and Rita Van Driel, Dutch Olympic Committee member, offers an her own insight in to total inclusion in sport, having many years of experience as a cross country skier and subsequently working with able-bodied and Paralympic winter sports athletes.
The ITF have been pivotal in the building the structure of wheelchair tennis, firmly establishing the sport within the tennis family and championing the integration of wheelchair tennis in to the Grand Slams. Representatives from the ITF outline this relationship and the future for wheelchair tennis, while former British No. 1 and world No. 2 doubles player and Wimbledon Wheelchair Double Champion Jayant Mistry relates his own experiences and explains how he take these experiences to inspire more local inclusion in community sport.
World renowned sports scientist Ann Quinn and Dr Nick Webborn, also a wheelchair tennis player, offer insights in to medical and scientific benefits and considerations for disabled people at both grass roots and elite level, while writer and journalist Tim Rushby-Smith offers his own personal account of how, following a fall from a tree in 2005, he has courted success in the media and as a wheelchair tennis player.
To watch a video of Invacare World Team Cup Ambassador and International Symposium key speaker Rainer Kuschall driving his racing car please click here.
The 2009 Invacare International Symposium on Integration and Sports takes place on Thursday, 30 July at the East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham.
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