A Video Celebration of Wheelchair Athletes

A Video Celebration of
Wheelchair Athletes

Med Services Europe has introduced free web-based videos highlighting wheelchair athletes and their accomplishments. The purpose of the initiative is to help raise awareness of wheelchair sports in the eyes of the public, as well as the sports media.

According to Dr Gene Emmer, President of Med Services Europe, the collection at NewDisability.com is meant to be a video celebration of wheelchair athletes.

“While the media celebrates the abilities of sports legends such as Kobe Bryant and Michael Schumacher, media attention to wheelchair athletes is minimal. Most sports writers can not name more than a few wheelchair athletes”, says Dr Emmer “But let’s see Kobe Bryant sink a 3 pointer or make a lay-up from a wheelchair.”

“Many wheelchair athletes have survived injuries that would have left the majority of us side-lined for life. They have not only come back from their injuries, they have shown us that they are heroes. But are we paying attention?” asked Dr Emmer.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) devotes entire section of its website to “Disability Sport” and regularly reports on wheelchair sporting events.

The BBC is setting an example for other leading newspapers and broadcasters around the world who do not give wheelchair athletes the level of coverage they deserve.

Med Services Europe has already gathered a wide-range of videos representing a cross section of wheelchair sports and some exceptionally talented wheelchair athletes, including wheelchair tennis player Ester Vergeer, wheelchair basketball player Ade Adeptan, murderball player Mark Zupan and the young wheelchair skateboarder Aaron Fotheringham.

Plans are to continually expand the collection over time.

On the topic of challenges to creating the collection, Dr Emmer said,” One of our challenges is copyright issues. So instead of downloading the videos to our website, generally we create a link to the source website and the video opens directly when clicked.

The risk is that each website uses different video players. Some prefer QuickTime, others Real Player and still others Media Player. Since not all computers will have all types of video players installed, some people will not be able to see all of the videos.”

“Our vision is that this will become the largest collection of wheelchair sports videos on the internet. Our hope is that it will serve as a resource for sports journalists and the public and help to raise awareness to wheelchair sports. We are asking the public to help us by suggesting cool sports wheelchair videos. And we are challenging the sports media to give these remarkable men and women the attention that they deserve.”

About Med Services Europe
Med Services Europe GmbH is a Zurich, Switzerland registered company. In addition to RehaDesign Wheelchair Gloves), designed for active wheelchair users, the company also represents Colours Wheelchairs in Europe and the Middle East.

Sports Resources for Wheelchair Athletes
Wheelchair Basketball Rules
Wheelchair Tennis
World Wheelchair Sports Organization
Extreme Sports
Mobility-Advisor.com Home Page

A Video Celebration of Wheelchair Athletes

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A Video Celebration of
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