Great Britain at the 2010 Winter Paralympics
Encyclopedia
Great Britain
competed at the 2010 Winter Paralympics
held in Vancouver
, Canada
. The team was made up of athletes from the whole United Kingdom; athletes from Northern Ireland
, who may elect to hold Irish citizenship
under the pre-1999 article 2 of the Irish constitution
, are able to be selected to represent either Great Britain or Ireland
at the Paralympics. Kelly Gallagher became the first Northern Irish athlete to compete in the Winter Paralympics by taking part in the alpine skiing discipline. Additionally some British overseas territories
compete separately from Britain in Paralympic competition. In order to be eligible to take part in the Games athletes had to have a disability that fell into one of the five Paralympics disability categories.
Great Britain fielded twelve athletes in total; a team of five in wheelchair curling
, and seven athletes in alpine skiing
. The team failed to win a medal for the first time since the 2002 Games, when just two British athletes competed, and although several of the squad finished with top ten results, the overall outcome was described as disappointing. Kelly Gallagher came closest to a medal, finishing fourth in the giant slalom for visually impaired athletes. Britain will be hosting the next Games when London hosts the 2012 Summer Paralympics
.
, the condition may be congenital or sustained through injury or illness; cerebral palsy
; wheelchair
athletes, there is often overlap between this and other categories; 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, dependant 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. Events with "B" in the code are for athletes with visual impairment, codes LW1 to LW9 are for athletes who stand to compete and LW10 to LW12 are for athletes who compete sitting down. For the 2010 Paralympics alpine skiing events grouped athletes in to sitting, standing and visually impaired. In biathlon events
, which contain a target shooting component, blind and visually impaired athletes are able to compete through the use of acoustic signals, whose signal intensity varies dependant upon whether or not the athlete is on target. Wheelchair curling, first added to the Games in 2006 in Turin, is open to athletes with a physical disability in the lower part of the body that requires the everyday use of a wheelchair. Stones may be played by hand while leaning over the side of the wheelchair, or pushed by a delivery stick.
, Timothy Farr, Sean Rose and Talan Skeels-Piggins
, and three women Jane Sowerby, Anna Turney and Kelly Gallagher
, as well as Gallagher’s guide
, Claire Robb. Docker was competing in his third Winter Paralympics, having previously taken part in Salt Lake City
and Turin
. The only other British skier with previous Games experience was Rose who had also raced in Turin.
Kelly Gallagher, who became the first Northern Irish athlete to compete in the Winter Paralympics, also achieved the team's highest finish, missing out on a medal by a single place and 3.36 seconds in the women's visually impaired giant slalom. Sean Rose and Anna Turney also achieved top ten finishes. Jane Sowerby's preparations were disrupted by a broken collarbone suffered in November 2009. She failed to finish in the slalom and was disqualified from the giant slalom due to a rolling start.
Men
Women
, Angela Malone, Tom Killin
, Aileen Neilson
and James Sellar. These five athletes, representing Scotland, had finished fifth at the 2009 World Championships. Three of the team, McCreadie, Malone and Killin, were also in the GB team which won the silver medal in the event at the 2006 Turin Games
. McCreadie, who was competing in his seventh Paralympics, won two bronze medals for Lawn Bowls in the 1976 Summer Paralympics
and Killin was a previous silver medalist in wheelchair fencing
at the 1980 Summer Games
.
Paralympic wheelchair curling is played according to the rules of the World Curling Federation
, the only modification is that there is no sweeping. The sport was open to both male and female athletes who competed in mixed teams, with a requirement that each team had at least one member of each sex. The format was a round-robin tournament
; each nation played all others in a group stage with the top four qualifying for medal playoffs. Great Britain won three of their nine group games, beating teams from Switzerland, Germany, and Japan. They finished in sixth position, which meant that they did not advance to the medal matches.
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
competed at the 2010 Winter Paralympics
2010 Winter Paralympics
The 2010 Winter Paralympics, officially the X Paralympic Winter Games, or the 10th Winter Paralympics, were held in Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia, Canada from March 12 to 21, 2010. The Opening Ceremony took place in BC Place Stadium in Vancouver and the Closing Ceremony in Whistler...
held in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. The team was made up of athletes from the whole United Kingdom; athletes from Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
, who may elect to hold Irish citizenship
Irish nationality law
Irish nationality law is the law of the Republic of Ireland governing citizenship. A person may be an Irish citizen through birth, descent, marriage to an Irish citizen or through naturalisation. Irish nationality law is currently contained in the provisions of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship...
under the pre-1999 article 2 of the Irish constitution
Constitution of Ireland
The Constitution of Ireland is the fundamental law of the Irish state. The constitution falls broadly within the liberal democratic tradition. It establishes an independent state based on a system of representative democracy and guarantees certain fundamental rights, along with a popularly elected...
, are able to be selected to represent either Great Britain or Ireland
Ireland at the Paralympics
Ireland has competed at every Summer Paralympic Games but the country has never taken part in the Winter Paralympics. Irish athletes have won 178 Summer Paralympic medals, 47 gold, 57 silver and 74 bronze...
at the Paralympics. Kelly Gallagher became the first Northern Irish athlete to compete in the Winter Paralympics by taking part in the alpine skiing discipline. Additionally some British overseas territories
British overseas territories
The British Overseas Territories are fourteen territories of the United Kingdom which, although they do not form part of the United Kingdom itself, fall under its jurisdiction. They are remnants of the British Empire that have not acquired independence or have voted to remain British territories...
compete separately from Britain in Paralympic competition. In order to be eligible to take part in the Games athletes had to have a disability that fell into one of the five Paralympics disability categories.
Great Britain fielded twelve athletes in total; a team of five in wheelchair curling
Wheelchair curling at the 2010 Winter Paralympics
The wheelchair curling competition of the 2010 Winter Paralympics was held at the Hillcrest Park in Vancouver, Canada, from 13 March to 20 March 2010...
, and seven athletes in alpine skiing
Alpine skiing at the 2010 Winter Paralympics
The alpine skiing competition of the Vancouver 2010 Paralympics will be held at Whistler, British Columbia. The events were due to be held between 13 March and 21 March 2010...
. The team failed to win a medal for the first time since the 2002 Games, when just two British athletes competed, and although several of the squad finished with top ten results, the overall outcome was described as disappointing. Kelly Gallagher came closest to a medal, finishing fourth in the giant slalom for visually impaired athletes. Britain will be hosting the next Games when London hosts the 2012 Summer Paralympics
2012 Summer Paralympics
The 2012 Summer Paralympic Games will be the fourteenth Paralympics and will take place between 29 August and 9 September 2012. The Games will be held in London, United Kingdom after the city was successful with its bid for the Paralympics and Summer Olympic Games.Even though 2012 will be London's...
.
Disability classification
Every participant at the Paralympics has their disability grouped into one of five disability categories; amputationAmputation
Amputation is the removal of a body extremity by trauma, prolonged constriction, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on individuals as a preventative surgery for...
, the condition may be congenital or sustained through injury or illness; cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy is an umbrella term encompassing a group of non-progressive, non-contagious motor conditions that cause physical disability in human development, chiefly in the various areas of body movement....
; wheelchair
Wheelchair
A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, designed to be a replacement for walking. The device comes in variations where it is propelled by motors or by the seated occupant turning the rear wheels by hand. Often there are handles behind the seat for someone else to do the pushing...
athletes, there is often overlap between this and other categories; visual impairment
Visual impairment
Visual impairment is vision loss to such a degree as to qualify as an additional support need through a significant limitation of visual capability resulting from either disease, trauma, or congenital or degenerative conditions that cannot be corrected by conventional means, such as refractive...
, including blindness
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
; Les autres, any physical disability that does not fall strictly under one of the other categories, for example dwarfism
Dwarfism
Dwarfism is short stature resulting from a medical condition. It is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than 4 feet 10 inches , although this definition is problematic because short stature in itself is not a disorder....
or multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...
. Each Paralympic sport then has its own classifications, dependant 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. Events with "B" in the code are for athletes with visual impairment, codes LW1 to LW9 are for athletes who stand to compete and LW10 to LW12 are for athletes who compete sitting down. For the 2010 Paralympics alpine skiing events grouped athletes in to sitting, standing and visually impaired. In biathlon events
Biathlon at the Winter Paralympics
Biathlon has been contested at the Winter Paralympic Games since the Winter Games in 1988, in Innsbruck, Austria.- Events :- Medal table : NPCs in italics no longer compete at the Winter ParalympicsAs of 2010 Winter Paralympics...
, which contain a target shooting component, blind and visually impaired athletes are able to compete through the use of acoustic signals, whose signal intensity varies dependant upon whether or not the athlete is on target. Wheelchair curling, first added to the Games in 2006 in Turin, is open to athletes with a physical disability in the lower part of the body that requires the everyday use of a wheelchair. Stones may be played by hand while leaning over the side of the wheelchair, or pushed by a delivery stick.
Alpine skiing
Britain’s alpine skiing team consisted of four men, Russell DockerRussell Docker
Russell Docker is a British Paralympic skier. Docker was paralysed from the chest down after he broke two vertebrae in his back in a five metre fall while on a skiing holiday in 1995. He has competed at three Winter Paralympic Games, his best finish was a 23rd place in 2006.-Early life and...
, Timothy Farr, Sean Rose and Talan Skeels-Piggins
Talan Skeels-Piggins
Talan Skeels-Piggins is a British alpine skier. Skeels-Piggins uses a sit-ski in competitions.Skeels-Piggins is a former Royal Navy fighter controller. He was paralysed from the chest down following a motorcycle accident in March 2003, which shattered his spine and broke his neck...
, and three women Jane Sowerby, Anna Turney and Kelly Gallagher
Kelly Gallagher (alpine skier)
Kelly Gallagher is a British skier and the first athlete from Northern Ireland to compete in the Winter Paralympics. She is a graduate in mathematics from the University of Bath.-Pre-Paralympics:Gallagher is visually impared and competes with a sighted guide...
, as well as Gallagher’s guide
Sighted guide
A sighted guide is a person who guides a person with blindness or vision impairment.-Paralympic Games:At the Paralympic Games there are various classifications of athletes with a visual impairment....
, Claire Robb. Docker was competing in his third Winter Paralympics, having previously taken part in Salt Lake City
2002 Winter Paralympics
The 2002 Winter Paralympics, the eighth Winter Paralympics, were held in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, from March 7 to March 16, 2002. A total of 416 athletes from 36 nations participated....
and Turin
2006 Winter Paralympics
The 2006 Winter Paralympic Games, the ninth Winter Paralympics, took place in Turin, Italy from 10 to 19 March 2006. These were the first Winter Paralympic Games to be held in Italy. They were also the first Paralympics to use the new paralympics logo....
. The only other British skier with previous Games experience was Rose who had also raced in Turin.
Kelly Gallagher, who became the first Northern Irish athlete to compete in the Winter Paralympics, also achieved the team's highest finish, missing out on a medal by a single place and 3.36 seconds in the women's visually impaired giant slalom. Sean Rose and Anna Turney also achieved top ten finishes. Jane Sowerby's preparations were disrupted by a broken collarbone suffered in November 2009. She failed to finish in the slalom and was disqualified from the giant slalom due to a rolling start.
Men
| Athlete | Event | Final | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Run 1 | Run 2 | Run 3 | Total Time | Calculated Time | Rank | ||
| Russell Docker Russell Docker Russell Docker is a British Paralympic skier. Docker was paralysed from the chest down after he broke two vertebrae in his back in a five metre fall while on a skiing holiday in 1995. He has competed at three Winter Paralympic Games, his best finish was a 23rd place in 2006.-Early life and... |
Downhill sitting | DSQ | N/A | DSQ | |||
| Giant slalom sitting | DNF | Did not finish | |||||
| Slalom sitting | DNF | Did not finish | |||||
| Super-G sitting | 1:44.07 | N/A | 29 | ||||
| Timothy Farr | Giant slalom sitting | DSQ | Disqualified | ||||
| Slalom sitting | 58.62 | 1:04.7 | N/A | 2:03.32 | 2:03.28 | 20 | |
| Sean Rose | Combined sitting | DNF | Did not finish | ||||
| Downhill sitting | 1:20.41 | N/A | 7 | ||||
| Giant slalom sitting | DSQ | Disqualified | |||||
| Slalom sitting | 53.69 | 1:05.2 | N/A | 1:58.89 | 1:52.74 | 8 | |
| Super-G sitting | DNF | Did not finish | |||||
| Talan Skeels-Piggins Talan Skeels-Piggins Talan Skeels-Piggins is a British alpine skier. Skeels-Piggins uses a sit-ski in competitions.Skeels-Piggins is a former Royal Navy fighter controller. He was paralysed from the chest down following a motorcycle accident in March 2003, which shattered his spine and broke his neck... |
Giant slalom sitting | 1:29.68 | 1:31.48 | N/A | 3:01.16 | 3:01.16 | 15 |
| Slalom sitting | 1:13.66 | 1:16.0 | N/A | 2:29.66 | 2:29.65 | 31 | |
| Super-G sitting | 1:37.62 | N/A | 25 | ||||
Women
| Athlete | Event | Final | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Run 1 | Run 2 | Total Time | Rank | ||||
| Kelly Gallagher Kelly Gallagher (alpine skier) Kelly Gallagher is a British skier and the first athlete from Northern Ireland to compete in the Winter Paralympics. She is a graduate in mathematics from the University of Bath.-Pre-Paralympics:Gallagher is visually impared and competes with a sighted guide... |
Giant slalom visually impaired | 1:38.65 | 1:35.88 | 3:14.53 | 4 | ||
| Slalom visually impaired | 1:05.94 | 1:09.32 | 2:15.26 | 6 | |||
| Jane Sowerby | Giant slalom sitting | DSQ | Disqualified | ||||
| Slalom sitting | DNF | Did not finish | |||||
| Anna Turney | Giant slalom sitting | 1:38.28 | DNF | Did not finish | |||
| Slalom sitting | 1:17.79 | 1:30.87 | 2:40.83 | 6 | |||
Wheelchair curling
Britain’s wheelchair curling team consisted of Michael McCreadieMichael McCreadie
Michael McCreadie is a Paralympian with successes in lawn bowls and wheelchair curling. He won two bronze medals in lawn bowls at the 1976 Summer Paralympics. After that he coached the British wheelchair basketball team. Later in life he moved on to wheelchair curling and was on the silver medal...
, Angela Malone, Tom Killin
Tom Killin
Tom Killin is a British multi-sport Paralympian. Killin was paralysed following a traffic accident at the age of 17.Killin won two medals in fencing at the 1970 Commonwealth Games...
, Aileen Neilson
Aileen Neilson
Aileen Neilson is a Scottish wheelchair curling player. She is the first female to skip a wheelchair curling team in either the Paralympic Games or World Championships ....
and James Sellar. These five athletes, representing Scotland, had finished fifth at the 2009 World Championships. Three of the team, McCreadie, Malone and Killin, were also in the GB team which won the silver medal in the event at the 2006 Turin Games
2006 Winter Paralympics
The 2006 Winter Paralympic Games, the ninth Winter Paralympics, took place in Turin, Italy from 10 to 19 March 2006. These were the first Winter Paralympic Games to be held in Italy. They were also the first Paralympics to use the new paralympics logo....
. McCreadie, who was competing in his seventh Paralympics, won two bronze medals for Lawn Bowls in the 1976 Summer Paralympics
1976 Summer Paralympics
The 1976 Summer Paralympics were the fifth Paralympic Games to be held. They were held in Toronto, in the province of Ontario, Canada from August 3 to 11, 1976...
and Killin was a previous silver medalist in wheelchair fencing
Wheelchair fencing
Wheelchair fencing is a version of Fencing for athletes with a disability. Wheelchair fencing is governed by the International Wheelchair Fencing that is a federation of the International Paralympic Committee, and is one of the sports in the Summer Paralympic Games.-Classification:*class A *class B...
at the 1980 Summer Games
1980 Summer Paralympics
The 1980 Summer Paralympics were the sixth Paralympic Games. They were held in Papendal, close to the host city of Arnhem, Netherlands, from June 21 to 30, 1980.- Sports :...
.
Paralympic wheelchair curling is played according to the rules of the World Curling Federation
World Curling Federation
The World Curling Federation is the world governing body for curling accreditation, with offices in Perth, Scotland. It was formed out of the International Curling Federation , when the push for Olympic Winter Sport status was made...
, the only modification is that there is no sweeping. The sport was open to both male and female athletes who competed in mixed teams, with a requirement that each team had at least one member of each sex. The format was a round-robin tournament
Round-robin tournament
A round-robin tournament is a competition "in which each contestant meets all other contestants in turn".-Terminology:...
; each nation played all others in a group stage with the top four qualifying for medal playoffs. Great Britain won three of their nine group games, beating teams from Switzerland, Germany, and Japan. They finished in sixth position, which meant that they did not advance to the medal matches.
| Squad list | Round robin | Tie-breaker | Semifinal | Final | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opposition Result |
Rank | |||||
Michael McCreadie Michael McCreadie Michael McCreadie is a Paralympian with successes in lawn bowls and wheelchair curling. He won two bronze medals in lawn bowls at the 1976 Summer Paralympics. After that he coached the British wheelchair basketball team. Later in life he moved on to wheelchair curling and was on the silver medal... Angela Malone Tom Killin Tom Killin Tom Killin is a British multi-sport Paralympian. Killin was paralysed following a traffic accident at the age of 17.Killin won two medals in fencing at the 1970 Commonwealth Games... Aileen Neilson Aileen Neilson Aileen Neilson is a Scottish wheelchair curling player. She is the first female to skip a wheelchair curling team in either the Paralympic Games or World Championships .... James Sellar |
L 2-9 |
6 | Did not advance | 6 | ||
L 5-7 |
||||||
W 10-2 |
||||||
L 4-7 |
||||||
L 7-8 |
||||||
W 9-2 |
||||||
L 6-7 |
||||||
L 3-6 |
||||||
W 10-4 |
||||||