Sam Rickard (born 8 September 1971, in

Mona Vale, New South Wales Mona Vale is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 28 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in an area known as the Northern Beaches. Formerly the administrative centre of Pittwat ...

) is an Australian vision impaired Paralympic athlete. He competed in four successive Paralympic Games 1988 to 2000, winning a bronze medal at the 1992 Barcelona Games. His nickname was 'the Sparrow'. At the 1988 Seoul Games, he competed in Men's 400m B3, Men's 800m B3 (5th) and Men's High Jump B3 (9th). He competed in the World Championships and Games for the Disabled,

Assen Assen () is a municipality and a city in the northeastern Netherlands, and is the capital of the province of Drenthe. It received city rights in 1809. Assen is known for TT Circuit Assen, the motorcycle racing circuit, where on the last Sund ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

winning a bronze medal in the Men's 800m B3. At the 1992 Barcelona Games, he won a bronze medal in the Men's 800m B3 and competed in Men's 1500m B3 (5th). In 1994, he left the Northern Territory to accept an

Australian Institute of Sport The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) is a high performance sports training institution in Australia. The Institute's headquarters were opened in 1981 and are situated in the northern suburb of Bruce, Canberra. The AIS is a division of th ...

(AIS) Athletes with a Disability residential scholarship in Canberra where he was coached by

Chris Nunn Christopher John Nunn, OAM (born 18 December 1958) is an Australian athletics coach. He was the head coach of the Australian athletics team at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics. Personal life He was born in Maffra, Victoria on 18 December 1958 and ...

. He departed the AIS in 1996. At the 1996 Atlanta Games, Sam competed in the Men's 400m T12 and Men's 1500m T12 (5th). He was disadvantaged because the 800m, his specialist distance was dropped from the Atlanta Athletics program. Finally, 2000 Sydney Games he competed in three events – Men's 400m T13 (7th), Men's 800m T13 (4th) and Men 1500 T13 (6th). He has been a board member of Blind Sports Australia.

References

stub Paralympic athletes for Australia Athletes (track and field) at the 1988 Summer Paralympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1992 Summer Paralympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1996 Summer Paralympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2000 Summer Paralympics Paralympic bronze medalists for Australia Australian blind people Australian Institute of Sport Paralympic track and field athletes Living people 1971 births Medalists at the 1992 Summer Paralympics Paralympic medalists in athletics (track and field) Australian male middle-distance runners Visually impaired middle-distance runners Paralympic middle-distance runners Athletes from Sydney Sportsmen from New South Wales {{Australia-Paralympic-medalist-stub