16 Facts About Philip Craven

Philip Craven was educated at Bolton School Boys' Division, where he was a keen swimmer, cricketer and tennis player.

Philip Craven studied geography at the University of Manchester, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1972.

Philip Craven competed in track and field athletics and swimming at the 1972 Games.

Philip Craven won gold at the Wheelchair Basketball World Championships in 1973, bronze in 1975, and two gold medals and a silver at the European Championships.

Philip Craven won gold at the European Champions Cup in 1994, and gold at the 1970 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games.

In 1980, alongside Horst Strohkendl and Stan Labanowich, Philip Craven played a vital role in the development of a new classification system for wheelchair basketball athletes.

In 1988, Philip Craven was elected Chairman of the Wheelchair Basketball Section of the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation, the first athlete to lead the sport worldwide.

Philip Craven's striving for self-determination and self-government pave the way for the establishment of wheelchair basketball as an independent federation, when it gave up its previous identification as a basketball section of the ISMGF to become the independent, self-governing International Wheelchair Basketball Federation in 1993.

At the First IWBF Official World Congress 1994 in Edmonton, Alberta, Philip Craven was elected the first President of IWBF, holding the office until 1998.

Philip Craven was elected as the second President of the International Paralympic Committee in 2001.

Philip Craven oversaw 8 Paralympic games with his first being Salt Lake City in 2002 and his last being in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

Sir Philip Craven became the first President to have the Paralympics games hosted in his home country, with the UK in 2012.

On 7 August 2016, Sir Philip Craven announced that the International Paralympic Committee would ban Russia from participating in the 2016 Paralympic Games for allegedly violating international doping rules.

Philip Craven served as Company Secretary at the British Coal Corporation from 1986 up to 1991.

Philip Craven is an Ambassador for Peace and Sport, a Monaco-based international organisation, committed to serving peace in the world through sport.

In June 2018, Sir Philip Craven was appointed to the board of directors of the Toyota Motor Corporation.