Vic Renalson

Victor "Vic" Allen Renalson, MBE (1926/27 – July 1998) was an Australian athlete, weightlifter, and track and field coach. He won ten medals at four Paralympics from 1964 to 1976, and worked as a track and field coach for both Olympic and Paralympic athletes.

Personal life Renalson became a paraplegic after a car accident in 1951 at the age of 23. He was working as a fitter and Turner and was driving to North Queensland to work on a sugarcane plantation when the steering on his car failed near Sarina. The car hit a bridge and he was thrown to a dry creek bed. He was married to Laurel, a former Queensland netballer and Australian walking champion, who died in 1992. He participated in athletics at three Paralympics from 1968 to 1976; in 1968 he won two gold medals in the Men's Club Throw A and Men's Discus A events, a silver medal in the Men's Javelin A event, and a bronze medal in the Men's Shot Put A event, and in 1972 he won a silver medal in the Men's Discus 3 event and a bronze medal in the Men's Precision Javelin open event.

A lifelong member of the Toowong Harriers Club, he coached Olympians Norma Croker, Eric Bigby, and Pat Duggan. Bigby said of him:

He was Australia's head track and field coach at the 1988 Seoul Paralympics, and worked with the Australian Institute of Sport as a satellite track and field coach from 1987 to 1993.

Recognition Renalson was a finalist in the ABC Sportsman of the Year award in 1968, and became a member of the Order of the British Empire in 1973 for services to sport and the community.