Although paracanoe makes its debut in the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, it will be Edina Muller’s third appearance at the Games. She is a former wheelchair basketball player who claimed a silver medal in Beijing in 2008, losing to United States of America in the final, before beating Australia to win gold in London four years later. She retired from the sport in 2014. She had already kayaked recreationally, but it was not until a friend invited her to the national training centre that she considered pursuing paracanoe seriously.

The graduate of kinesiology from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign made her paracanoe world championships debut in 2015, finishing second in the KL1W 200m behind Great Britain’s Jeanette Chippington. She had also finished as a runner up at the wheelchair basketball world championships in 2010 and 2014, but was not to be denied in 2016, securing her first world title ahead of Chippington, and becoming the first female German world champion in paracanoe.


She is a person with paraplegia. At age 16 she suffered back pain during a volleyball match. She was treated by an orthopaedic surgeon but was soon unable to feel her legs. An operation showed her spinal cord had been irreparably damaged. She played sitting volleyball and wheelchair tennis before beginning her wheelchair basketball career. The 2013 Sportswoman of the Year in Hamburg works as a sports therapist, including assisting people who have just started using a wheelchair.

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