Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award

The Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award is named after South Korean Dr. Whang Youn Dai, who contracted polio at the age of three. She devoted her life to the development of paralympic sport in Korea and around the world. At the 1988 Paralympic Summer Games in Seoul, Korea, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) recognized her lifelong contributions to the Paralympic Movement and established the Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award (formerly the Whang Youn Dai Overcome Prize). Since then, this award has been presented at every Paralympic Games to one male and one female athlete who each "best exemplify the spirit of the Games and inspire and excite the world".^[1]

According to the IPC, "the award is for someone who is fair, honest and is uncompromising in his or her values and prioritizes the promotion of the Paralympic Movement above personal recognition." Six finalists, three female and three male, are selected from participants at the Paralympic Games. Two winners are then selected as recipients of the prize and receive a gold medal at the closing ceremonies of the Games. South African sprint runner Oscar Pistorius was nominated for the award in 2012, but did not win.^[2] The IPC decided that from the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, it will no longer be awarded in the closing ceremony for the Paralympics. Instead, it was replaced by the I'mPOSSIBLE Award, established by the Agitos Foundation and the International Paralympic Committee and supported by the Nippon Foundation Paralympic Support Centre.

Winners edit

Year	Host	Season	Winner	NPC	Ref
1988	Seoul	Summer	Anne Trotman	Great Britain	^[3]
1988	Seoul	Summer	Pier Morten	Canada	^[3]
1992	Barcelona	Summer	Jacile Wolfgang	United States	^[4]
1992	Barcelona	Summer	Gabriel Angel	Chile	^[4]
1996	Atlanta	Summer	Beatriz Mendoza Rivero	Spain	^[5]
1996	Atlanta	Summer	David Lega	Sweden	^[5]
1998	Nagano	Winter	Kim Mi-Jeong	South Korea	^[6]
1998	Nagano	Winter	Marcin Kos	Poland	^[6]
2000	Sydney	Summer	Martina Willing	Germany	^[7]
2000	Sydney	Summer	Oumar B. Kone	Ivory Coast	^[7]
2002	Salt Lake City	Winter	Lauren Woolstencroft	Canada	^[8]
2002	Salt Lake City	Winter	Axel Hecker	Germany	^[8]
2004	Athens	Summer	Zanele Situ	South Africa	^[9]
2004	Athens	Summer	Rainer Schmidt	Germany	^[9]
2006	Torino	Winter	Olena Iurkovska	Ukraine	^[10]
2006	Torino	Winter	Lonnie Hannah	United States	^[10]
2008	Beijing	Summer	Natalie Du Toit	South Africa	^[11]
2008	Beijing	Summer	Said Gomez	Panama	^[11]
2010	Vancouver	Winter	Colette Bourgonje	Canada	^[12]
2010	Vancouver	Winter	Endo Takayuki	Japan	^[12]
2012	London	Summer	Mary Nakhumicha Zakayo	Kenya	^[1]
2012	London	Summer	Michael McKillop	Ireland	^[1]
2014	Sochi	Winter	Bibian Mentel-Spee	Netherlands	^[13]
2014	Sochi	Winter	Toby Kane	Australia	^[13]
2016	Rio de Janeiro	Summer	Tatyana McFadden	United States	^[14]
2016	Rio de Janeiro	Summer	Ibrahim Al Hussein	Individual Paralympic Athletes	^[14]
2018	PyeongChang	Winter	Sini Pyy	Finland	^[15]
2018	PyeongChang	Winter	Adam Hall	New Zealand	^[15]