Maya Lindholm

Maya Lindholm (born 20 December 1990) is a German wheelchair basketball player, who played with the German national team that won a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. She also won a European title in 2011 and was runner-up in 2013. President Joachim Gauck awarded the team Germany's highest sporting honour, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt (Silver Laurel Leaf).

Biography Maya Lindholm was born in Hamburg on 20 December 1990. In 2004, she awoke one morning with severe back pain, and within hours she could no longer move her legs. Doctors diagnosed spinal cord inflammation. She is studying to be an occupational therapist at the BG Trauma Hospital in Hamburg Boberg. She began playing wheelchair basketball for fun at the hospital in 2005. In 2009, she was selected as part of the national team.

Classified as a 2.5 point player, Lindholm plays power forward. She was part of the team that won the European Championships in Nazareth, Israel, in 2011, thereby qualifying for the 2012 Summer Paralympic Games in London. As part of the team's preparation, they toured the United States and Australia.

In the Gold Medal match in London, the team faced the Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team, In front of a crowd of over 12,985 at the North Greenwich Arena, they defeated the Australians 58–44 to win the gold medal, the first that Germany had won in women's wheelchair basketball since 1984.

Lindholm's local team, Hamburger SV, which also included national teammates Mareike Adermann and Edina Müller (and Australia's Bridie Kean) won the women's national championship for the eighth time in 2013. Lindholm was also part of the Hamburger SV team that had previously won it in 2010.

The German national team was not so fortunate, losing the final of the European Championship to the Netherlands before a home town crowd in Frankfurt. It claimed silver at the 2014 Women's World Wheelchair Basketball Championship in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2010: Silver at the IWBF World Championships (Birmingham, Great Britain) 2011: Gold at the European Wheelchair Basketball Championships (Nazareth, Israel) 2012: Gold at the Paralympic Games (London, England) 2015: Gold at the European Championships (Worcester, England) 2016: Silver at the Paralympic Games (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Awards 2012: Team of the Year 2012: Silver Laurel Leaf