Kevin Munro

Kevin Munro

Personal information
Nationality	Australia
Born	1950? Port Pirie, South Australia
Medal record Athletics Paralympic Games 1968 Tel Aviv Men's 100 m Wheelchair B 1968 Tel Aviv Men's 4x40 m Relay open

Kevin Munro is an Australian Paralympic athlete and wheelchair basketballer. At the 1968 Tel Aviv Games, he won a gold medal in the Men's 100 m Wheelchair B event and a silver medal in the Men's 4x40 m Relay open event.

Personal

Munro, born in Port Pirie, South Australia, was partly paralysed from birth. He attended Port Pirie Primary School and Nailsworth Technical High School. In 1966, cartilage was removed from his left leg and with the right leg totally incapacitated, his hopes of receiving special equipment from the US, that would enable him to be independent without a wheelchair, did not come to fruition. He lived at the Northfield Wards, Royal Adelaide Hospital, and drove his own adapted car to work each day where he was employed as a tool maker by trade. In 1971, at 20 years of age, Munro started work as a contract binder at the Royal Society for the Blind, South Australia, and was promoted to Coordinator of Packaging and Assembly, where he continues to work to this day.

Career

At the 1966 Border Games, the paraplegic sporting event of the year for wheelchair athletes, held in Mount Gambier, Munro became known as the fastest man in a wheelchair after he defeated defending champion Paralympian Bruno Moretti in the A Grade 50 yard (metre) dash, and the A Grade 110 yard (metre) Championships, with a time of 23 seconds. At the Australian Paraplegic Games, held in Perth in 1968, he set a new world record for the half-mile wheelchair race with a time of 3 minutes 59 seconds.

At eighteen years of age, he won a gold medal and set a world record for the 100 metre wheelchair sprint (21.7 seconds), at the 1968 Tel Aviv Games. His Australian time of 20 seconds was not recognized as a world record due to the incorrect number of time watches used. A member of the 160 metre relay team, he won a silver medal at the same Games. At the South Australian's Sportsman's Association's Annual Lindy Awards,1968, Munro was recognized for his outstanding achievements in Paralympic sports and in overcoming his disability. That same year he held the Australian Paraplegic records for Club and Discus throwing, and middleweight Weightlifting.

Munro was selected to represent South Australia at the First FESPIC Games, Oita, Japan in 1975.

At the 1980 Arnhem Games, he participated in the Men's 100 m 4- event and in the Australia men's national wheelchair basketball team.

File:1968 Australian Paralympic Team South Australian Members.JPG

South Australian team members reunion in 2013. Left to Right - Pam McLeod (athlete), Pat Ollerenshaw (APC History Researcher), Libby Kosmala (secretary), Janet Tyler (nurse) and Kevin Munro (athlete)

In June 2013, Munro joined other South Australian members of the 1968 Australian Paralympics Team to relive memories as part of the Australian Paralympic Committee history project. . The 1968 Games were the first Games where South Australia athletes had been selected for Australia.