Matthew "Matt" Byrne (born 8 October 1974) is a British wheelchair basketball player. He participated at the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens where he finished in third position. At the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, Byrne finished in bronze medal position with Great Britain. He played for United Kingdom at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London.[1]
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Birth name | Matthew Byrne | |||||||||||||||||
| Nationality |  Great Britain | |||||||||||||||||
| Born | 8 October 1974 Nottingham, England | |||||||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||
| Country | Great Britain | |||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Wheelchair basketball | |||||||||||||||||
| Event | Men's team | |||||||||||||||||
| Club | Wolverhampton Rhinos | |||||||||||||||||
| Team | Bulldogs | |||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Personal life
editByrne was born in 1974 in Nottingham. He is a paraplegic, meaning that he has an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. He was introduced into wheelchair basketball during his rehabilitation at a hospital following a motocross accident at the age of fifteen. He is also married to Anna Byrne who is a teacher at The Long Eaton School.[2]
Wheelchair basketball
editByrne first played wheelchair basketball in 1991, and joined the Sheffield Steelers club for five years before moving to the Nottingham Jaguars, near where he was born. His current club, the Wolverhampton Rhinos (RGK TCAT Rhinos), have won the Super League many times during his time there. He made his début for the Great Britain national team in 2001.[1]
Byrne participated in the 2001/2002 European Championships in Amsterdam, his first time competing at a major international event. He and the United Kingdom national team finished in fourth position, out of medal contention. In 2002, he won a silver medal at the 2002 World Championships in Kitakyushu, a city on the third-largest island of Japan. He finished third and won a bronze medal at the Sassari 2003 European Championships.[citation needed]
Byrne competed in the 2004 Summer Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece; he and the United Kingdom national team won the bronze medal.[1][2] Following his first Paralympics, Byrne and his team won a silver medal at the 2005 European Championships in Paris and took fifth place at the world championships in Amsterdam the following year. The U.K. team won the silver medal at the European Championships in Wetzlar, Netherlands in 2007.
Byrne and the U.K. team proceeded to win bronze at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing. The following year, he also won bronze at the European Championships in Adana, Turkey. In 2011, he and his team won gold at the European Championships in Nazareth, northern Israel.[1][2]
Byrne was a member of the U.K.'s wheelchair basketball national team at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, held in London.[3][4] The team finished in fourth place after losing to Canada[5] and the United States.[6] In 2012, Byrne was made co-captain of the Great Britain Men's Wheelchair Basketball team.[7]
References
edit- ^ a b c d "Matt Byrne". British Paralympic Association. Archived from the original on 15 August 2012. Retrieved 21 August 2012.
- ^ a b c "Matt Byrne". GBWBA. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 21 August 2012.
- ^ "Trowell's Matt Byrne selected for GB Paralympics squad". This is Nottingham. 31 May 2012. Retrieved 21 August 2012.
- ^ "ParalympicsGB: Who will compete for Great Britain in London?". BBC News. 12 August 2012.
- ^ "Paralympics 2012: Great Britain lose semi-final with Canada". BBC News. 6 September 2012. Retrieved 17 September 2012.
- ^ "Paralympics 2012: GB miss out on wheelchair basketball bronze". BBC Sport. 8 September 2012. Retrieved 17 September 2012.
- ^ "Thousands flock to ExCeL's independent living Naidex exhibition". Newham Recorder. 26 October 2012.