But there was a silver lining for Sue Hobbs

It was the story of the Games for Australian wheelchair athlete Sue Hobbs as she pursued gold medallist Juana Soto of Mexico to win a silver medal in the women’s Class 5 1500m at the 1980 summer Paralympics. Hobbs won three silver medals at the Games – in the 60m, 800m and 1500m – all behind Soto’s gold. The racing chairs were very unsophisticated by today’s standards, with the variety of designs showing that no-one had really yet got it right, the athletes having to work very hard to keep their chairs at speed.