Roy Fowler (22 March 1920 – 19 September 2002) was an Australian Paralympic competitor, who won ten medals at six Paralympics from 1964 to 1988.

Personal

Fowler was born in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

. He played

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

and competed in swimming for his school until he was twelve, when he went to the

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a ...

to work at a drover's camp during the Great Depression. At the age of fourteen, he had his first professional fight. During World War II, he was a gunner in the 2/2 Tank Attack Regiment of the Australian Army, and after the war, he toured Australia as part of a

tag team Tag team wrestling is a type of professional wrestling in which matches are contested between teams of multiple wrestlers. Tag teams may be made up of wrestlers who normally wrestle in singles competition, but more commonly are made of establish ...

professional wrestling circuit. In 1963 he had a

cerebral haemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...

after a coalmining accident, and became a quadriplegic. He spent six months in the spinal unit of the Princess Alexandra Hospital and then went to the Kingshome Rehabilitation Centre, where he was introduced to wheelchair sport. He died on 19 September 2002 at the age of 82. He was survived by his wife, Mary, and at the time of his death he was living in East Ipswich. He was nicknamed "Chook". Fowler was also an accomplished artist, painting during his spare time. He was also well known in Brisbane's horse racing community, becoming a part-owner of racehorses during his regular Saturday visits to racetracks when his sporting commitments allowed.

Competitive career

Fowler's first international competition was the 1964 Tokyo Games, where he won three gold medals in swimming in the Men's 25 m Breaststroke complete class 1, Men's 25 m Freestyle Prone complete class 1, and Men's 25 m Freestyle Supine complete class 1 events, and two silver medals in archery in the Men's St. Nicholas Round open and Men's St. Nicholas Round Team open events. In archery, he also won a silver medal in the Men's FITA Round open event and a bronze medal in the Men's FITA Round Team open event at the 1972 Heidelberg Games, and participated but did not win any medals in both archery and dartchery at the 1968 Tel Aviv and 1976 Toronto games. His favourite sport was archery, and he reached the top 20 in the world in non-disabled archery competition. In 1981 he took up

lawn bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gr ...

, and reached the semi-finals in the sport at the 1983

Stoke Mandeville Games Stoke is a common place name in the United Kingdom. Stoke may refer to: Places United Kingdom The largest city called Stoke is Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. See below. Berkshire * Stoke Row, Berkshire Bristol * Stoke Bishop * Sto ...

. He won two gold medals in the sport at the 1984 New York/Stoke Mandeville Games in both the Men's Pairs and Singles paraplegic events, the former event with Eric Magennis, and another gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Games in the Men's Pairs 2–6 event with

Stan Kosmala Stan Kosmala (born 19 February 1950) is an Australian Paralympic competitor, who has competed in athletics, wheelchair basketball, lawn bowls and shooting. Born in Germany, he contracted polio at the age of two. He is married to Paralympic sho ...

. The first Paralympic gold medallist in lawn bowls from Queensland, he was undefeated in national disabled competitions from 1982 to 1991, winning nine national singles titles, and excelled in non-disabled lawn bowls competitions. After a health setback in 1998 that saw him in hospital for a year, he won a gold medal in a national competition months after his release. He won 100 medals in national and international wheelchair sport.

Recognition

In 2000 at the age of 80, Fowler participated in the Paralympic torch relay. That year, he received an

Australian Sports Medal The Australian Sports Medal is an award given to recognise achievements in Australian sport to commemorate Australian participation in major sporting events. Original recipients of the award included competitors, coaches, sports scientists, offi ...

References

External links