Wheelchair Slalom at the Paralympic Games
Wheelchair Slalom was an event at the Summer Paralympics, held from Tokyo 1964 to Seoul 1988. The sport was part of the athletics program.
The wheelchair slalom event involves athletes in a wheelchair navigating an obstacle course through cones and up and down ramps, as quickly and cleanly as possible. The aim was to be the quickest through the course, with one-second penalties added to the total time for each fouling on a marker.
screenshots from a video of Cherrie Ireland from Australia navigating some of the obstacles in the women’s Class 3 wheelchair slalom event at the 1972 Paralympics in Heidelberg, West Germany. (source: Video by Don Worley, from the National Film and Sound Archive.)In 1980 (and maybe other years too), slalom events were held along the race track in a more exciting head-to-head format.
Related Pages
- List of sports at the Paralympics
- More about the sport of wheelchair slalom
- Complete list of sports
- List of Sports for Athletes with Disabilities
- Main Paralympics page
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