Sharon Hedrick

Sharon Hedrick (née Rahn, born April 26, 1956) is an American former paralympic swimmer, wheelchair racer and wheelchair basketballer.

Hedrick was born in Horsham, Pennsylvania. At the age of nine, she was accidentally shot by a 12-year-old boy playing with a loaded gun. This left her paralyzed from the waist down.

Hedrick is the only US athlete to have won gold in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Athletic career Sharon Hedrick did not get involved in wheelchair sports until she was 19,

In 1977 Hedrick was the first female wheelchair competitor in the Boston Marathon; she finished with a time of 3:48:51.

In 1980 Hedrick competed in the Paralympic Games for the first time as a wheelchair basketballer. The team gained the bronze medal. Hedricks did not compete in the 1984 team which failed to bring a medal home, but returned to win gold and then silver in the two subsequent games in the Seoul Olympics in 1988 and the Barcelona Olympics in 1992.

In 1984 Hedrick turned down a place on the Paralympic team She finished with a time of 2:15.73.

Honors In 1977 Hedrick won the Top Female Athlete Award at the National Wheelchair Games. In 1985 she was presented with the Southland Olympia Award, which recognizes excellence in sport and the embodiment of the 'amateur ideal'. Hedrick was the first wheelchair athlete to be presented this award. Hedrick was awarded the Jack Gerhardt Outstanding Wheelchair Athlete Award in 1988. Also in 1988 Hedrick was the recipient of the Athlete of the Year Award from USOC.

In 1994 Hedrick became the first woman to be inducted into the National Wheelchair Basketball Association Hall of Fame.

2012 saw Hedrick becoming a member of Barack Obama's Presidential Delegation to the London Paralympic Games alongside fellow wheelchair athlete Jean Driscoll.

Personal life Hedrick is married to Dr. Brad Hedrick, a basketball coach and Director of the Division of Disability Resources and Education Services (DRES) at the University of Illinois. Hedrick was coached by her husband in the USA Women's Wheelchair Basketball team in 1988 when the team won their first gold. They have one adopted son, Nathan.

Hedrick is now retired

Selected works Books Introduction to Wheelchair Track & Field – with Brad Hedrick and S. Figoni (1995). A Guide for Wheelchair Sports Training (1988)

Book chapters Women's wheelchair basketball. In A Century of Women's Basketball: From Frailty to Final Four. pages 367–378. - with Brad Hedrick (1991)