Eric Russell

Eric Cyril Russell, MBE (born 7 January 1944) is an Australian Paralympic athlete, coach, and administrator.

Personal Russell was born on 7 January 1944 in the Queensland city of Maryborough. After leaving school, he served an apprenticeship as a boilermaker.

Competitive career

Russell's career began in 1972 when he participated in a shot put trial for the National Games that were to be competed in Sydney later that year. He was selected for the Games where he finished with two bronze and one silver medal.

At the 1976 Toronto Games, he won three gold medals in the Men's Discus 3, Men's Pentathlon 3 and Men's Shot Put 3 events and a silver medal in the Men's Javelin 3 event; he was also part of the Australia men's national wheelchair basketball team at the games. Despite setting a world record in the discus, he rejected the gold medal for that event because of politics being injected into the Games; several national teams had boycotted the competition due to the presence of the South African Paralympic team during the apartheid era, at a time when many sports teams from that country were banned from international competition. Russell said: "We have enough of a common bond in our disabilities without governments bringing politics into it". Following his protest, Russell was ordered to attend a meeting with Kevin Betts and Ludwig Guttmann where he left the meeting in frustration as a result of his issue with the politics associated with the Games. A press conference was then held the next morning where Russell was awarded a medal for the excellence of his protest which he later returned to the lawn bowler from whom it was taken. Going into the 1992 Games, he had won 26 gold medals at 16 events.

Sport administration Russell has served in several positions in disabled athletics including as a coach, sport administrator, and sport event director. He was the Chairman of Athletics at the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation from 1978 to 1988. After realising that he had achieved all of his initial goals, Russell resigned from his position as Chairman of Athletics in 1988. Russell was the inaugural Representative for the South-Pacific Region on the International Paralympic Committee. He resigned from this role in 1993 because of the politics within the sport.