UNITED STATES QUAD RUGBY ASSOCIATION

Team USA

3.5 Joe Soares
3.0 Brad Updegrove
2.5 Mike Wyatt
2.0 Dave Gould
2.0 Cliff Chunn
1.5 Bill Renje
1.0 Dave Ceruti
0.5 Eddie Crouch

Wheelchair Rugby

From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Canada rattled the United States in wheelchair rugby, but the United States took the gold medal with a 37-30 win that was tougher than the Americans had planned.

U.S. Coach Terry Vinyard called Friday's victory a "big thing for wheelchair rugby."

The aggressive contact sport, which many of its players dubbed "murderball" when it first came to America in 1981, has come a long way in a short time. While still officially a demonstration sport this year, it will be a full-medal sport in Sydney in 2000.

It's good for other Paralympic sports, its advocates said, because it "takes away the perception that quadriplegics are fragile," said U.S. teammate Brad Updegrove of Houston. Chairs routinely smash into one another and topple, and players are often knocked from their chairs onto the court, an indoor basketball floor.

Vinyard said the chairs, not the athletes, take most of the abuse.

Also on Friday, New Zealand took the bronze medal over Great Britain 46-34.

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