Getting Into Wheelchair Racquetball

By Karen Walker

It was a long time in coming, but at the Stoke Mandeville Developmental Games in Aylesbury, England last year, many athletes with disabilities from around the world were able to participate in wheel-chair racquetball for the first time.

David Hinton, chairman of both the International Stoke Mandeville Wheelchair Sports Federation’s Racquetball Di-vision and the Committee for Athletes with Disabilities –International Racquetball Fed-eration, brought two Canadian ranked players, Mark Cor-mack (ranked 2nd) and Ken Michaylenko (ranked 3rd), to the games to promote and demonstrate the sport. The re-sults were very encouraging: A week of demonstrations culminated in a tournament with more nations participa-ting than ever experienced before in wheelchair racquet-ball. Consequently, several of the countries now have plans to play and promote the sport themselves.

This promotion has already started in Great Britain with the formation of the British Wheelchair Racquetball As-sociation earlier this year. The association has given several demonstrations and held cli-nics over the last few months, and there are now enough serious players in Britain to send a full team of three men and three women to the VII World Racquetball Cham-pionships in San Luis Potosi, Mexico this August.

For those who are new to the sport, racquetball is a fast, exciting game played with a racquet and a ball on a four-walled court. The game is si-milar to squash except that all surfaces, including the ceiling, are in play. Points are scored only when serving, and the best two out of three games to 15 points win the match, with a tie-breaker to 11 points (international rules). The only difference between standard racquetball and the wheelchair version of the game is that while able-bodied players are allowed only one bounce before they must hit the ball, wheelchair users are permitted up to two bounces.

Having an enclosed court, smooth floor and lively ball makes racquetball an ideal sport for wheelchair athletes, a fact that has not gone un-noticed by the International Paralympic Committee. Da-vid Hinton took five of the world’s top players to Barce-lona in 1992 to promote and demonstrate the sport and, as a result, wheelchair rac-quetball will be a full-medal demonstration sport in the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta, Georgia – even though the game’s counterpart for able-bodied players has yet to achieve this status.

However, wheelchair racquetball athletes have the full support and respect of their able-bodied colleagues. Internationally, the sport has been fully integrated since 1990, when it made its debut at the V World Champion-ships held in Caracas, Vene-zuela. All major Canadian and American tournaments have wheelchair divisions as a part of their competitions.

The British debut of wheel-chair racquetball took place at the first annual Turkey Shoot open tournament hosted by United States Air Force military personnel at R.A.F. Chicksands in Bedfordshire, England. With over 50 entries – six of them wheelchair ath-letes – six divisions and only two courts, the staff at the fitness centre and in particular the tournament director, Gary Spraggins, should be com-mended for their outstanding efforts and for the support given to the athletes through-out the weekend.

One of the most exciting matches of the tournament was between Steve Jones and Danny Aykroyd, who battled it out for a place in the semi-finals. After a slow start, Jones came back to win the first game, 15-7. Aykroyd then took the second game 15-11 and went on to win the tie-breaker, 11-9, after two match points. A forfeit by Steve Wood put Aykroyd through to the final.

After a closely tied game at the start, George Gould-bourn-Simons defeated Gary Vaughan in the other semi-final and went through to the final in a more closely match-ed game than the final score of 15-8, 15-4 would indicate. Simons then went on to beat Aykroyd 15-5, 15-5 in a somewhat anti-climactic final. Gary Vaughan took third place, and Mark Fowler won the consolation bracket.

Success is sweet for Gouldbourn-Simons, who was defeated in the racquetball final at the Stoke Mandeville Developmental Games after injuring his arm. His only comment on the sport before wheeling off into the sunset with his prize: “It’s a great game!”

(Karen Walker is President of the British Wheelchair Racquetball Association. For more information, contact David Hinton at the Canadian Racquetball Association, (613) 748-5653.)

INTERNATIONAL WHEELCHAIR RACQUETBALL COMPETITIVE SCHEDULE

PACIFIC OPEN RACQUETBALL TOURNAMENT
January 12-16, 1994
Vancouver, Canada

KEYSTONE PRO/AM RACQUETBALL TOURNAMENT
February 11-13, 1994
Winnipeg, Canada

TRALEE INTERNATIONAL RACUETBALL TOURNAMENT
(Irish Open)
February 18-20, 1994
Tralee, Ireland

PITTSBURGH PRO/AM RACQUETBALL TOURNAMENT
February 18-20, 1994
Pittsburgh, USA

TORNEO DE LAS AMERICAS RACQUETBALL
March 26-Apr. 2, 1994
Buenos Aires, Argentina

STOKE MANDEVILLE WHEELCHAIR GAMES
July 27-29, 1994
Aylesbury, England

WORLD RACQUETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS
August 13-20, 1994
San Luis Potosi, Mexico