Annegret Brießmann (born 28 July 1972) is a 1.0 point

wheelchair basketball Wheelchair basketball is basketball played by people with varying physical disabilities that disqualify them from playing a non-disabled sport. These include spina bifida, birth defects, cerebral palsy, paralysis due to accident, amputations (o ...

player, who plays for the Frankfurt . She has also played with the German national team which won a gold medal at the

2012 Summer Paralympics The 2012 Summer Paralympics, branded as the London 2012 Paralympic Games, were an international multi-sport parasports event held from 29 August to 9 September 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. They were the 14th Summer Paralympic Gam ...

in London. President

Joachim Gauck Joachim Wilhelm Gauck (; born 24 January 1940) is a German politician and civil rights activist who served as President of Germany from 2012 to 2017. A former Lutheranism, Lutheran pastor, he came to prominence as an anti-communist civil rights ...

awarded the team Germany's highest sporting honour, the ''

Silbernes Lorbeerblatt Silbernes Lorbeerblatt (Silver Laurel Leaf), the highest sports award in Germany, was endowed on 23 June 1950 by the German President Theodor Heuss. It is awarded to athletes and teams of exemplary character that have won medals at Olympic and ...

'' (Silver Laurel Leaf).

Biography

Annegret Brießmann was born in on 28 July 1972. She now lives in Einhausen. As a teenager, she played soccer for SKG Ober-Beerbach Fußball, and participated in

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

events with TSV Eschollbrücken. She also played

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

with the local team, BSC Einhausen, for many years. A skiing accident in Austria in 2005 resulted in a broken vertebra, rendering Brießmann a

paraplegic Paraplegia, or paraparesis, is an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek () "half-stricken". It is usually caused by spinal cord injury or a congenital condition that affects the neur ...

. She went back to track and field athletics, winning the German national championship in the

shot put The shot put is a track and field event involving "putting" (throwing) a heavy spherical ball—the ''shot''—as far as possible. The shot put competition for men has been a part of the modern Olympics since their revival in 1896, and women's ...

with a throw of . In athletics she had a

Disability sport classification Disability sports classification is a system that allows for fair competition between people with different types of disabilities. Historically, the process has been overseen by 2 groups: specific disability type sport organizations that cover mul ...

of T55. In the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) world rankings her shot put throw of ranked her fifth in the world; her in discus put her in eighth place; and in the

javelin A javelin is a light spear designed primarily to be thrown, historically as a ranged weapon, but today predominantly for sport. The javelin is almost always thrown by hand, unlike the sling, bow, and crossbow, which launch projectiles with t ...

with she was ranked eleventh. Einhausen named her their Sportswoman of the Year in 2009. However, T55 classification events were dropped from the track and field program for the

in London. Brießmann was introduced to the sport of

while in rehab. She was classified as a 1.0 point player, the highest level of disability. She played in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

and

Aschaffenburg Aschaffenburg (; South Franconian: ''Aschebersch'') is a town in northwest Bavaria, Germany. The town of Aschaffenburg is not part of the district of Aschaffenburg, but is its administrative seat. Aschaffenburg belonged to the Archbishopric ...

, then joined the in Frankfurt in 2010. Playing for Team Hessen, she won the women's championships in 2009, 2011 and 2012. She began training with the national squad, and in July 2012 national coach

Holger Glinicki Holger Glinicki (born 25 October 1952) is a German wheelchair basketball coach, who coached Hamburger SV. He was assistant coach of the German women's national team from 2003 to 2005. He has been coach of the team since 2006, during which time ...

nominated her for the national team for the London Paralympics. In the Gold Medal match in London, the team faced the

Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team The Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team is the women's wheelchair basketball side that represents Australia in international competitions. The team is known as the Gliders. The team hasn't won a gold medal for Australia since ...

, who had defeated them 48–46 in Sydney just a few months before, in front of a capacity crowd of over 12,000 at the

North Greenwich Arena The O2 Arena, commonly known as the O2 (stylised as The O2 arena), is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the centre of the O2 entertainment complex on the Greenwich Peninsula in southeast London. It opened in its present form in 2007. It has the s ...

. The German team had been undefeated up to that point, but had started off slow in its games against the United States and China, winning these games by six-point margins, and seemed to play its best basketball only in the final minutes of a game. They defeated the Australians 44–58 in front of a crowd of over 12,000 at the

to win the gold medal, the first that Germany had won in women's wheelchair basketball in 28 years. It was the first gold medal that Germany had won in women's wheelchair basketball at the Paralympics since 1984. They were awarded the Silver Laurel Leaf by President

in November 2012, and were named Team of the Year for 2012. The German team lost the European Championship to the Netherlands before a home town crowd of 2,300 in Frankfurt in July 2013 by a point, 56–57. It claimed silver at the

2014 Women's World Wheelchair Basketball Championship Separate men's and women's Wheelchair Basketball World Championship tournaments were held in 2014. The women's tournament was held at the Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto, Canada between 20 and 28 June 2014. It was the largest women's ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

, Ontario, Canada, and beat the Netherlands in the 2015 European Championships, to claim its tenth European title. At the

2016 Paralympic Games The 2016 Summer Paralympics (), the 15th Summer Paralympic Games, were a major international multi-sport event for disabled sports, athletes with disabilities governed by the International Paralympic Committee, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, fro ...

, it won silver after losing the final to the United States.

Achievements

*2012: Gold at the Paralympic Games (London, England) *2013: Silver at the European Championships (Frankfurt, Germany) *2014: Silver at the World Championships (Toronto, Canada) * 2015: Gold at the European Championships (

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Englan ...

, England) * 2016: Silver at the Paralympic Games (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Awards

*2012: Team of the Year *2012: Silver Laurel Leaf

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Briessmann, Annegret 1972 births Living people German women's wheelchair basketball players Paralympic wheelchair basketball players for Germany Paralympic gold medalists for Germany Paralympic silver medalists for Germany Paralympic medalists in wheelchair basketball Wheelchair basketball players at the 2012 Summer Paralympics Wheelchair basketball players at the 2016 Summer Paralympics Medalists at the 2012 Summer Paralympics Medalists at the 2016 Summer Paralympics Recipients of the Silver Laurel Leaf