Paralympians Melisa Stockwell and Allison Jones have been nominated for a 2011 ESPY award.
Stockwell, a former first lieutenant in the U.S. Army, was the first woman soldier to lose a limb in the Iraq War. She also was the first Iraq veteran to compete in the Paralympic Games as a swimmer. In 2008, she set a new American record in the Women’s 400m freestyle (S9) at the Paralympic Swimming Trials, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and went on to represent the United States at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing, China. The swimmer-turned-paratriathlete won her division of the 2010 International Triathlon Union (ITU) Paratriathlon World Championships, Budapest Hungary.
Jones, who was born without a right femur, captured the gold medal in both the individual time trial (C2) and the individual road race (C2) at the 2010 Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) Para-cycling Road World Championships, held in Baie-Comeau, Quebec, Canada. She is also a four-time Paralympian, having competed both in cycling and skiing.
Other nominees in the best female athlete with a physical disability category include Mallory Weggemann, who took home eight gold medals and one silver at the long course IPC Swimming World Championships, Eindhoven, Netherlands; Alana Nichols, who won downhill and super giant slalom at the 2010 Paralympic Games, Vancouver, Canada, and with her two gold medals in Vancouver at the 2010 Paralympic Games became the first American woman to win gold in both the winter and summer games; and Tatyana McFadden, a wheelchair racer who won five medals in five events at the 2011 IPC Athletics World Championships, Christchurch, New Zealand-four of those five medals were gold.
Jerome Single received an ESPY nomination in the best male athlete with a physical disability category. Singleton, who was born without a fibula and had his right foot amputated as an infant, is a sprinter who beat reigning champion Oscar Pistorius to win gold in the men’s 100m (T44) at the 2011 IPC Athletics World Championships.
Other nominees in this category include Chris Devlin-Young, who won the sit-ski super giant slalom at the 2010 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships, Sestriere, Italy; Anthony Robles, a congenital transfemoral amputee who was selected as the outstanding Wrestler of the 2011 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament and won the 125-pound category, and who posted a 36-0 wrestling record at Arizona State University, Tempe, his senior year; Aaron Scheidies, who despite being blind competes in triathlons, having won seven national and six world championships; and Steve Wampler, the first person with cerebral palsy to climb El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, California.
Voting is open through July 9.
