Wheelchair rugby

Wheelchair rugby is a team sport for athletes with a disability, practised in over twenty-five countries and contested at the summer Paralympic Games. Five Canadians looking for sports accessible to people with tetraplegia created it in 1976 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and it was first called murderball because of its aggressive, full-contact nature. The game is played indoors on a hardwood court with the dimensions of a basketball court, and players cannot kick the ball but must carry its spherical shape across the opponents' goal line in a wheelchair. Its rules borrow elements from wheelchair basketball, ice hockey, handball and rugby union, and the original format is four against four. It appeared as a demonstration sport at the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta and has had full medal status since Sydney in 2000, and the sport is governed by World Wheelchair Rugby, established in 1993.