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.