1968 Summer Paralympics

III. Summer Paralympics

Venue:	Tel Aviv Israel
Opening ceremony:	4th November 1968
Closing ceremony:	November 13, 1968
Opened by:	Yigal Allon (Deputy Prime Minister)
Competitions:	181 competitions in 10 sports
Countries:	29
Athletes:	750
← Tokyo 1964
Heidelberg 1972 →

Medal table
space	country				total
1	United States	33	27	39	99
2	United Kingdom	29	20th	20th	69
3	Israel	18th	21st	23	62
4th	Australia	15th	16	7th	38
5	France	13	10	9	32
6th	BR Germany	12	12	11	35
7th	Italy	12	10	17th	39
8th	Netherlands	12	4th	4th	20th
9	Argentina	10	10	10	30th
10	South Africa	9	10	7th	26th
...	...
15th	Austria	2	7th	10	19th
...	...
22nd	Switzerland	-	2	6th	8th
Complete medal table

The 3rd Summer Paralympics took place in Tel Aviv in November 1968 . The Paralympics for 1968 did not start in Mexico City as planned . The Mexican government withdrew from the responsibility of hosting the Summer Paralympics two years before the Games. The reason given was technical difficulties.

Participating Nations

Ethiopia  Argentina  Australia  Belgium  BR Germany  Denmark  Finland  France  India  Ireland

Israel  Italy  Jamaica  Japan  Canada  Malta  New Zealand  Netherlands  Norway

Austria  Rhodesia  Sweden  Switzerland  Spain  South Africa  South Korea  United States  United Kingdom

sports

The list of sports was expanded at these games. Lawn bowling, women's basketball and the men's 100m wheelchair race were introduced. There have been major changes in the classification system for athletics, basketball and swimming.

• Archery
• darts
• Weightlifting
• athletics
• Lawn bowling
• Wheelchair basketball
• Wheelchair fencing
• swim
• snooker
• Table tennis

Successes of the German team

The German team won 35 medals in Tel Aviv. Manfred Emmel won a total of five medals in swimming and table tennis . Heinz Simon won four medals each in archery, pentathlon and table tennis as well as Johann Schuhbauer (athletics). Germany thus took sixth place in the national ranking.

Outstanding athletes

Roberto Marson from Italy was the star of the games with ten gold medals. He won three in athletics, three in swimming and four in fencing. The American Es Owen won two gold medals in athletics, gold in the pentathlon and two gold medals in swimming, as well as silver with the basketball team and bronze in the javelin. Australian swimmer Lorraine Dodd set three records in one day.

Highlights

In the wheelchair basketball tournament, Israel defeated the USA in the final with 47:37 points in front of 5,000 enthusiastic spectators.

Web links

• Paralympics Tel Aviv 1968 on the website of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ International Paralympic Committee: Paralympics Tel Aviv 1968 . Retrieved August 28, 2012.