Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974

Ludwig Guttmann demonstrates a pinprick classification test on Australian athlete Robert McIntyre, using the pin from his identity card to check the response of sensation at different levels in his body. All Paralympic athletes are required to undergo classification before they can compete. Guttmann was the founder of the Paralympic Games and continued to play an active role in the Paralympic movement until his death in 1980.

Date: August 1972

Author: This image is a still from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany.

Interviewer: Mick Fogarty
Interviewee: Michael Milton
Publisher: National Library of Australia
Recorded: 12 April 2011
Location: Canberra, ACT
Listen to the full interview here.

Date: March 2006

Brad Dubberley (lefy) and George Hucks reflect the mood in the Australian wheelchair rugby team at the Athens summer Paralympics. After going from a bunch of ill-disciplined amateurs at the world championships in 1998 to thrilling silver medallists in 2000, the wheelchair rugby team was on a mission to go one better in Athens. The secret weapon was a 15 year-old potential superstar named Ryley Batt, who was provisionally classified as a 2.5 pointer. In wheelchair rugby, the players’ classification points range from 0.5 to 3.5 and each team can have 4 players with a total of up to 8 points on the floor at the same time. Line-ups and plays are built around combinations of players and their points ratings. However, Batt was a ‘quad amputee’, with deficiencies in all four limbs. In a sport which was traditionally played by athletes with quadriplegia, amputee athletes were a controversial inclusion, as they usually have the use of all trunk muscles. Ryley was re-classified in Athens as a 3.5 and teammate Scott Vitale was re-classified from a 1.0 to 1.5. The Australian team’s line-ups and plays were suddenly meaningless. Although the team retained key players such as Hucks and Dubberley from Sydney, it lost a close quarter-final and missed the medal round. Up until the Athens Games, the Australian Paralympic Committee’s policy had been that it was the responsibility of the sport and the individual athlete to ensure that they were classified and that their classification was up-to-date and appropriate. Partly as a result of the Athens experience, the APC introduced a national classification program in 2006 and developed a policy and practices to ensure that the APC, the sports and Australian athletes would go to the Paralympics certain of the classification of every team member.

Date: September 2004

Author: Photo by Rob Prezioso (www.prezioso.com.au).

Standing volleyball is played by players with an impairment which puts them at a disadvantage in the able-bodied game of volleyball. Players are classified into three classes – A, B or C – depending on their level of impairment. Of the six players on the court, only one can be class A (least impaired) and at least one must be class C. Steven Neal was a class A player who had a limited range of motion in his legs. He was the key player in the Australian standing volleyball team at the Sydney summer Paralympics. There was no women’s tournament at the Games. It was Australia’s only appearance in standing volleyball at the Paralympics and the team finished 8th of the 8 teams. After 2000, the sport was removed from the Paralympic Games program and the sitting volleyball program expanded to include a women’s competition.

Date: October 2000

Author: Image by Sport The Library. All rights held by Paralympics Australia.

Australian swimmers Sandra Yaxley (left) and Anne Currie (right), on the starting blocks at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games in the S6 category. Currie won gold and Yaxley the bronze in the 100m freestyle event. These were the first Paralympic Games to combine disability groups into the same categories for competition in Swimming events, based on level of function, rather than type of disability. This meant that Yaxley, with cerebral palsy, was competing against leg amputee Currie.

Date: September 1992

Author: Norman Bailey, photographer

Medical examination of competitors is necessary to establish the classes in which they will compete. Sir Ludwig Guttman is doing the examinations here. He was the founder of the para sporting movement which had small beginnings in Stoke Mandeville near London in 1948 and has since spread throughout the world.

Date: January 1974