Thailand at The Paralympics

Thailand At The Paralympics

Thailand made its Paralympic Games début at the 1984 Summer Paralympics in Stoke Mandeville and New York, with competitors in athletics, lawn bowls and swimming. The country has participated in every subsequent edition of the Summer Paralympics, but has never taken part in the Winter Games.

Thailand won no medals in 1984. Sakul Kumtan was the first Thai Paralympic medallist when he won silver in the javelin (men's A3A9 category) in 1988 - Thailand's only medal of those Games. The country was far more successful in later years, although it did not win its first gold medals until 2000. Thai athletes have won a total of nine gold medals, seventeen silver and eighteen bronze, in a variety of sports: track and field, swimming, powerlifting, archery, boccia, wheelchair fencing and wheelchair tennis.

Thailand's gold medallists so far have been:

• in 2000, Supachai Koysub in the men's 200m sprint, T54 category; Prawat Wahoram in both the men's 5,000m and 10,000 (T54); Koysub, Ampai Sualuang, Prasitdhi Thongchuen and Sopa Intasen in the men's 4x100m relay (T54); and Somchai Doungkaew in the men's 50m butterfly in swimming (S4)
• in 2004, Koysub, Wahoram, Pichet Krungget and Rawat Tana in both the men's 4x100m and 4x400m (T53-54); and Saysunee Jana in the women's épée individual (category B) - Thailand's first woman Paralympic champion
• in 2008, Wahoram in the men's 5,000m (T54).

Prawat Wahoram is thus Thailand's most successful Paralympian to date, with five gold medals, while Saysunee Jana remains the only Thai woman to have won a Paralympic gold medal.