GALLERY: The weird and the wonderful world of sport wheelchair design in 1980
By 1980, it was obvious that people were thinking about how to maximise chair design for performance. The racers lined with Peter Hill up for the start of the 60m sit in chairs with a variety of wheel size, push rim size, length and set-up. Sue Hobbs‘ chair looks comfortable but did it help her to go faster? Julie Russell went for a small footplate, centrally mounted, while Erich Hubel‘s push rims look like the fat steering wheel of a hot Torana. Meanwhile, back at the basketball, these days we might think they were playing in hospital chairs, unstable in every direction. Technology had not yet really come to the party at the Paralympics!
Date: June 1980
Author: These images are stills from a film made by Donald Worley about Australia's participation at the 1980 Summer Paralympics in Arnhem, Netherlands.
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