Paralympics New Zealand History

New Zealand’s first participation in sports events for people with disabilities was in 1962 when an Auckland paraplegic attended the first British Commonwealth Paraplegic Games held in Western Australia.

In 1965 Auckland set up the first local association and in 1966 a team comprising of nine Aucklanders and one Dunedin competitor were selected to attend the Commonwealth Games in Jamaica.

Christchurch held the first inter-provincial Games in 1966, having by that time also set up an association, with seventeen competitors.  In 1968 the first National Paraplegic Games were held with twenty-nine competitors. Shortly after that, the Otago-Southland Association was formed, closely followed by another in Wellington.

Also in 1968 The New Zealand Paraplegic & Physically Disabled Federation (ParaFed New Zealand) was formed as the National Body for disability sport to enable an official team to represent New Zealand at the Paralympics in Tel Aviv. Fifteen competitors attended the Games in Israel and returned with one Gold, two Silver and two Bronze medals (McKie, 1983).

Additional regional associations were formed in Northland, Bay of Plenty, Wanganui, Manawatu, Taranaki, Nelson, Waikato, North Otago, Western Bay of Plenty, Hawkes Bay, Southland, Dunedin, Eastern Bay of Plenty and Eastland. Having changed its name to ParaFed New Zealand in the early nineties a further change was made in October 1998 to Paralympics New Zealand.  This was to gain greater public awareness and raise the profile of disability sport by focusing on its most prestigious event – The Paralympic Games.