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SDS would like to congratulate fellow Scot Craig Carscadden, Cerebral Palsy International Sports and Recreation Association (CPISRA) Head of Development who has been awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours List for his service to athletes with disabilities. Craig, has achieved this honour through his various volunteer roles with disability sport organisations and coaching athletes. As a volunteer with CPISRA for over 12 years, Craig’s contribution has been immense; firstly, as Athletics Technical Officer; then Development and Education Officer; and currently as Head of Development and Education and Board Member.

Craig started his involvement with disability sport as an athlete. He was a middle distance competitive athlete competing in the 1996 Paralympics who continued his involvement in sport by being a Middle Distance Coach for the Great Britain Team in the 2000 Sydney and the 2004 Athens Paralympics. Craig is still involved in coaching today as a senior Endurance Coach for a Running Club in England.

During the ten-year period of 1998 – 2008, Craig was Athletics Co-ordinator for Cerebral Palsy Sport England. His roles were organising coaching for athletes of all levels of ability and planning competitions at national level including the successful Grand Prix series. Additionally, Craig was on the IPC athletics committee for 6 years. As an active member of this committee, he provided constructive input to determine the competition programme and qualifying standards for both 2006 World Championships and 2008 Paralympics.

Craig has led CPISRA development of adaptive sports for a number of years and through his leadership, guidance and often significant direct contribution has evolved structured and real opportunities for different types of disability impairment, thereby creating competitive sports participation including pathway to elite international competition for groups of people that would otherwise not have had such opportunity. Craig has been responsible for developing classification systems for RaceRunning and table cricket. He has also developed rules and regulations for RaceRunning and Slalom and carried out numerous coaching clinics. Craig’s contribution to CPISRA has literally resulted in increased opportunities for athletes with cerebral palsy around the world.

The British Paralympic Association (BPA) has announced five Scottish wheelchair curlers to represent ParalympicsGB at the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games. The Paralympic Winter Games take place from March 9-18.

Four of the team that claimed bronze at Sochi 2014 are returning to the Paralympic stage with skip Aileen Neilson contesting her third Games, Gregor Ewan and Robert McPherson making their second appearances, while Angie Malone MBE is set to take part in her fourth Games.

Malone has competed at every Games since the sport made its debut at Turin in 2006. She won silver on that occasion, as well as bronze in Sochi, making her GB’s most decorated Paralympic curler.

Hugh Nibloe is set to make his Games debut

The team will compete at the Gangeung Curling Centre in PyeongChang, the venue where the same group claimed a bronze medal for Scotland at the Wheelchair Curling World Championships in 2017.

Aileen Neilson said: “I’m delighted to be leading this team into the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games. We have all worked so hard over this cycle and are ready to return to Paralympic competition to take on the best in the world.

“We know the venue well after the World Championships and I am confident that the experience and resilience in this team means that we can go and perform at a very high level.”

Hugh Nibloe said: “It’s incredibly exciting to be selected to represent ParalympicsGB at my first Paralympic Winter Games. We have a really positive team dynamic and have enjoyed a really encouraging start to the season, beating many of our strongest rivals.

“We’ve proven that we can compete at the highest level and we’re heading to Korea to show exactly what we can do.”

The news increases the Scottish representation at the Games to six, following the announcement of Glasgow’s Brett Wild, who will guide Millie Knight in Para-skiing.

Selected Wheelchair Curlers:

Gregor Ewan, 46, Elgin

Angie Malone MBE, 52, Glasgow

Robert McPherson, 49, Bellshill

Aileen Neilson MBE, 45, Strathaven

Hugh Nibloe, 35, Stranraer

 

SDS has now officially released the Selection Policies and Standards for the Scottish team to compete at the CPISRA World Games in Sant Cugat, Spain, from the 5^th-11^th August 2018. Individual policies for the sports of Para-Athletics & RaceRunning, Para-Swimming, Para-Table Tennis and Boccia are attached.

The selection panel will meet on Tuesday 1 February 2018 to select the athletes to represent Scotland in all four sport.       All selected athletes will receive written notification formally through the SDS office no later than Wednesday 14 February 2018.

Scottish teams have historically enjoyed considerable success at the CPISRA World Championships and although there is likely to be a small Scottish team in Sant Cugat, further medal hopes are high.

Para Athletics & RaceRunning

Boccia

Para Swimming

Para Table Tennis

With the inclusion of Para-Badminton in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics the whole world is upping their game to get those few coveted spots in 2.5 years’ time. This was evident in the most attended and most competitive Para-Badminton World Championships yet, with Asia taking 16 out of the 22 available gold medals and Europe taking 6.

Representing team Scotland were Colin Leslie and Alan Oliver in SL3 class, Mary Wilson in SL4 class, Deirdre Nagle in SS6 and Fiona Christie in WH2, with all 5 athletes playing all three events.

Colin Leslie finished the tournament the most decorated Scot with a last 16 place in all three events. In the SL3 singles event, Colin progressed as second in his group to reach the knock out stages, meeting eventual runner up Manoj Sarkar of India where Colin was defeated in 2 sets. Alan Oliver also representing in the SL3 singles was beaten in his pool by two strong Korean and Indian opponents.

In the men’s SL3-SL4 doubles both Colin and English partner Antony Forester and Alan with Finish partner Rickard Nilson progressed out of their pools in 2^nd position and lost out in the last 16.

SL3-SU5 mixed doubles saw three Scottish competitors, Alan with Dutch partner Megan Hollander, Colin with Danish partner Astrid Lihav Riss and Mary with Antony Forester. Colin and Astrid in a thrilling 3-way tie count back came out on top of their group after convincingly beating, Japanese and Thai opponents, loosing out only to fellow Europeans in a 22-20 third set thriller. Unfortunately, they were unable to continue the winning streak losing out to Corrie Robinson from New Zealand and Caitlin Dransfield of Australia in the last 16, who had earlier beaten Alan and Megan in three sets in their pool.

in the WH2 events Fiona having finished 2^nd in her pool progressed to the last 16 meeting recent BWF Female Para-Badminton player of the year winner Amnouy Wetwithan from Thailand, where she lost out in straight sets to a very experienced opponent. Playing with Laura-Lee Jenkins and David Follet in the women’s and mixed WH1-WH2, Fiona lost out in both pools and was unable to progress further.

In SL4 singles Mary lost out in the quarter finals to eventual finalist Leani Ratri Oktila of Indonesia in straight sets, and in the ladie’s doubles with Russian Partner Natalia Irmachuck, Mary was unable to progress out of the groups.

Lastly in SS6 Deirdre Nagle having won a game in both singles and mixed with Russian partner Alexander Mekhdiev, were unable to progress due to being in pools of 4. In the women’s doubles Dierdre and Polish Partner Weronika Krzeminska lost to World number 1’s and, in a close 2 sets, to young Polish to finish third in their group.

Coach Kaity Hall was with the team for the event and commented; ‘The level of Para-Badminton at this World Championships is unlike I have ever seen before and I can anticipate that our international events will be stronger within the next few years. The Scots need to keep working hard and look to these champs as motivation and inspiration to continue to try and better their game. Thanks to Badminton Scotland for their support in this event and with the squad sessions over the last year and thanks to Korean Badminton Association for Disabled for running an extremely successful World Championships.