June 12th

[Jeff King]

the Ontario Armwrestling Assoc. (which I am vice president of) has been approached by the WHEELS IN MOTION for spinal chord research about doing an armwrestling demo at the event on June 12th in London 10 - 11am at Parkwood hospital (race site) with interest in making it a sport for the special para olympics!
See www.rickhansen.com for info on the organization.

This is being done as part of the actual WHEELS IN MOTION event

Just wanted to pass this along and share the news because it's a pretty great thing to be asked to do!
-JEFF

[Elaine Blik]

Jeff, how did your armwrestling demo go Sunday? I hope it went well and lots of interest expressed.

[Aaron Lengyel]

Jeff,

That is great news and perhaps time.

Previously the Sit down style had its share of disabled competitors. For example Ron Minor was one of the Athletes in the first WAF World Champions for Canada in Canada in 1979. He was 127 lbs and in a Wheel chair, however it never stopped him from being an awesome competitor.

In fact he toured with Rick Hansen on his Man in Motion tours.

This is a long time coming and good news. Have them refer to the 1979 WAF Worlds on ArmTV. to see other para athletes as well.

Also have them refer to this link about Ron Minor. It also mentions his arm wrestling ventures as well as others.

www.cwba.ca/admin/ron.html

Ron would be a great contact to implement a system for athletes.

Cheers

Aaron

[Jeff King]

Back after doing the demo at the RICK HANSEN WHEELS IN MOTION in London today (armwrestling demo for wheelchair sports). Went awesome and the Canadian Paraplegic Assoc. wants to have a tournament as part of the relays at Western Fair next year! So will be constructing a special table for this and running concurrently with the wheelchair basketball potentially at another venue/time. This is a BIG positive move for armwrestling. Would be great if it could lead to special or para olympics inclusion eventually! Very easy to modify armwrestling for this. We were a very popular exhibit with a lot of attention from the people in the event. (most never saw real armwrestling before.)
Great PR for the sport and really blessed being asked to be involved with such an event which goes on nationwide as the WHEELS IN MOTION tour does.

At any rate, would build the classes at the nationals and world championships with new pullers in these classes.
REALLY GOOD DAY!

BIG THANKS to Rob Hancock, Linda DeGroot, Rick Baarbe, Mike Clark and George Iszakouits for helping out!
-JEFF