The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH) recently welcomed the first-ever Stanmore winners of a national sports competition.
Held at the Stoke Mandeville Stadium every year, the WheelPower Inter Spinal Unit Games (ISUG) bring together more than 100 spinal patients from across the country.
Patients receive coaching and demonstrations from wheelchair sports athletes and coaches in over 20 sports including archery, wheelchair rugby, athletics, fencing, tennis, powerlifting, swimming, and shooting.
Team Stanmore recently secured their first-ever win at the games in September 2024 and returned to RNOH to answer questions from spinal unit patients and staff, sharing their personal experiences from the games. The day also included a wheelchair basketball game in the hospital’s Aspire gym.
Paralympic medallists and former RNOH patients Dimitri Coutya and Marcus Perrineau-Daley presented the medals to the members of Team Stanmore who were in attendance. Dimitri is the winner of two gold medals in fencing, while Marcus secured a silver medal in the 100m T52 wheelchair racing in Paris 2024.
Anya, senior physiotherapist at the London spinal cord injury unit, said: “The team participated in lots of sports, and some of [the team] were scouted to take part in some Team GB trials which is really exciting. There was an amazing energy within the team over the week and everyone really just threw themselves into everything for the team.
“We also had some great individual performances as well with winning medals which included para archery, para badminton, mixed tetra shooting, para table tennis, and mixed tetra Boccia.”
A statement from RNOH NHS Trust said: “A massive thank you to everyone who has enabled the games to happen, whether it be in the background with logistics, being support staff at the games, or holding the fort back on the unit, thank you – we couldn’t have done it without you all.”
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