Craven Honoured At Sport Industry Awards

Sir Philip Craven MBE, one of the Paralympic movement’s greatest pioneers, received the Lifetime Achievement Award sponsored by Monitor Quest at the Sport Industry Awards ceremony on Wednesday 2nd May in recognition of his decades of tireless dedication to sport. 

The President of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) received the Award from his former teammate Armand ‘Tip’ Thiboutot and NBA legend John Amaechi to a standing ovation from an audience of 1,750 key figures from across the entire spectrum of British and European sport. 

Sir Philip has served as the President of the IPC since his election in 2001. During that time he has led the development of both the Paralympic movement and the IPC itself in the ‘One Bid, One City’ era of Olympic and Paralympic cooperation, striving to ensure that the Paralympic Games fulfil their role as an equal partner to the Olympic Games. As part of that ongoing achievement, he has served as an International Olympic Committee (IOC) and British Olympic Association (BOA) member since 2003 and on the Board of LOCOG since 2005.

The Bolton-born athlete made his Paralympic Games debut in 1972 competing in two sports – swimming and wheelchair basketball – and went on to represent Great Britain at wheelchair basketball at a further four Paralympic Games between 1976 and 1988. Even before the end of his own competitive career, he had played a crucial role in the development of Paralympic sport, campaigning for the introduction of a new classification system in wheelchair basketball that would no longer force athletes to depend on medical examinations. Adopted in 1982, the new classification system has since seen wheelchair basketball develop into one of the Paralympic movement’s flagship sports, with crowds and TV audiences continually on the rise.

In 1988 Sir Philip was named Chairman of Wheelchair Basketball at the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation, the former governing body of Paralympic sport. His fierce campaign for self-determination in the role was vital to the 1993 creation of the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation, and he served as the organisation’s first President until 1998. He was then named the IPC’s second President in 2001. During his time as IPC President, the Paralympic Movement has enjoyed significant growth and now boasts over 200 members, including 174 National Paralympic Committees across the globe.

As an athlete, amongst a host of medals and honours, he helped Great Britain win the Wheelchair Basketball World Championship in 1973 and played a key role as his team secured European gold in 1971 and 1974 and Commonwealth gold in 1970. He was awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 for services to wheelchair basketball and knighted in 2005.

Presenting the Award, Tip Thiboutot told the room: Wheelchair basketball was first played in 1946 by World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries, primarily for rehabilitation purposes. It soon caught on and, bizarrely, before long the same physicians who had encouraged veterans to play the sport were trying to stop them, as they felt the sport was becoming too physical. Some even suggested lowering the baskets to make the sport easier. The veterans refused. By continuing to play the sport they invented, those veterans gave birth to the concept of self-determination through sport for individuals with physical impairments. Sir Philip Craven is today the living symbol of self-determination through sport.

It is the sign of an exceptional individual when you consider that even though Sir Philip has been identified as one of the five greatest wheelchair basketball players in the history of the sport, he is now better known for his actions off the court. By his words, by his actions, and as a result of the astounding achievements of athletes he has encouraged, he has succeeded in diminishing the negative implications of the expression: ‘the disabled’. He has stated that: ‘Disabled is a negative word invented by others to marginalise a group of people.’ That is rehabilitation, not only for athletes and individuals with impairments, but also for those individuals who are not impaired. Sir Philip Craven has not, and will never, lower the baskets.

Sir Philip Craven commented: This Award is recognition of where the Paralympic movement has come, particularly during the last ten years. As Tip Thiboutot kindly said, I’ve worked very hard to get rid of that ‘D-word’ – it’s not disabled sport, it’s sport. Sport is for everybody – whether Paralympic sport or Olympic sport. And if this is a recognition of that, I’m happy. It makes me feel even younger than I did before, and I’m just looking forward to seeing what we can achieve in the next ten or 20 years.”

Nick Keller, chairman of the Sport Industry Group, commented: Sir Philip Craven has fought tirelessly and at times against fierce opposition in his 40-year quest for self-determination and the advancement of wheelchair basketball and the Paralympic movement as a whole. It is no exaggeration to say that, without him, the Paralympics we know today and the Games we look forward to this summer would be absolutely unrecognisable. The Sport Industry Awards judges were unaninimous in their decision to give Sir Philip this Award, and I know their admiration for his achievements is echoed not just in this country, or on this continent, but all around the world. 

Xavier Gonzalez, the IPC’s chief executive officer, added: “I am delighted that Sir Philip has been recognised by his peers with this prestigious award, it is thoroughly deserved. Under his stewardship the Paralympic movement has made enormous leaps forward, transforming from a disability sports organisation into a sports organisation. It is fitting that in the lead-up to London 2012 he receives this accolade.”

The official partners of the Sport Industry Awards are Barclays, Deloitte and Eurosport.