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Margaret Maughan, Medal-Winning Wheelchair Athlete, Dies at 91

Paralyzed from the waist down, she won gold in archery and swimming at the first Paralympic Games in 1960 and became an advocate of sports as therapy.

Margaret Maughan in an undated photograph at the Stoke Mandeville Games in England. Those games are considered the predecessor of the Paralympics, at which she went on to a total of six medals.Credit...National Paralympic Trust

Her back was ramrod straight, her arms steady and her aim true. When Margaret Maughan pulled back the string on her bow — from her seat in a wheelchair — she shot her way into Paralympic history.

Ms. Maughan, who died on May 20 at 91, was Britain’s first gold medalist, winning in archery in the world’s first Paralympic Games, held in Rome in 1960. (She won a second gold in Rome, in swimming, in an event in which she had no competition.) Over the years she won a total of six medals at the Games, four gold and two silver. And well into her later years she remained a fervent promoter of Paralympics, believing that sports are a valuable aid in rehabilitation.

She also continued to participate in the Games — in 1968, ’72, ’76 and ’80 — before retiring, competing as well in dartchery, a combination of darts and archery, and lawn bowls, which is like alley bowling except that the balls that are not round but oddly shaped.

Though always modest about her accomplishments, she became a legend among Paralympians. In her 80s she was given the honor of lighting the flame at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Paralympic Games in London.

The moment was “very emotional and impressive,” she said at the time. Referring to her first win, 52 years earlier, she added, “Who would have thought that my gold medal, which has been kept in a bag in the drawer, would have brought me such fame?”

Nick Webborn, chairman of the British Paralympic Association, announced her death but gave no further details.

Ms. Maughan lost the use of her legs in a car accident in Malawi in 1959. After surgery, she was flown home to England and treated at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire, northwest of London. The hospital’s spinal injuries center, which became world renowned caring for wounded soldiers during World War II, was run by Ludwig Guttmann, a dynamic and innovative neurologist who had fled Nazi Germany.

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Ms. Maughan, left, returning from the 1960 Paralympic Games in Rome with her fellow medal winners Dick Thompson and Barbara Anderson.Credit...PA Images, via Getty Images

He used sports as therapy, a revolutionary concept at the time, and in 1948 he organized the Stoke Mandeville Games — essentially an archery contest — at which 16 patients in wheelchairs competed against injured veterans, also using wheelchairs, who came from another hospital on the Stoke Mandeville grounds.

The event, which coincided with the opening of the 1948 Olympic Games in London, is considered the birth of the Paralympic movement, and Dr. Guttmann is considered the movement’s father.

He organized other such games annually. They were held outside Britain for the first time in 1960, when more than 400 disabled athletes — including Ms. Maughan — from 23 countries met in Rome, just after the Summer Olympics there. The 1960 Games became known, retroactively, as the first Paralympics. They have expanded greatly since then, with the most recent Games, held in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, drawing more than 4,000 competitors from 159 countries.

Margaret Maughan was born on June 19, 1928, in Much Hoole, Lancashire, to Madge (Holt) Maughan, a teacher, and Charlie Maughan, a miner. She trained as a teacher at the University of Edinburgh, then found work as a home economics teacher in Jamaica.

She eventually moved to Africa to teach in the British protectorate of Nyasaland (now Malawi). Then, six months after she arrived, came the car accident, which left her with a broken back and paralyzed from the waist down.

At Stoke Mandeville, she regarded Dr. Guttmann as both a stern taskmaster and an inspiration. She told him at one point that she was bored and frustrated. A tough disciplinarian, he told her to get a grip and look on the positive side: Even though she would never walk again, he said, she could do many things with her life.

He introduced her to archery at the hospital. Finding she had an innate talent for the sport, she joined monthly competitions. After she was discharged, she moved in with her parents in Lancashire and joined a local archery club.

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Ms. Maughan lit the flame during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Paralympics, held in London.Credit...Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Several months later, Dr. Guttmann called her back to Stoke Mandeville; he wanted her to try out for a British team that would go to Rome to compete in the games that would come to be called the 1960 Paralympics. To her surprise she was accepted, joining a squad of 42 men and women.

Those first games were almost an afterthought, nothing like the highly choreographed, televised spectacles of today. Few plans had been made to accommodate people in wheelchairs. When the players flew to Rome, they had to be put on the plane by forklift. Their sleeping quarters in Rome were built on stilts, so they had to be carried up to their bunks by soldiers.

Scores were not announced in real time. Only when Ms. Maughan was riding the bus back to her bunk was she informed that she was needed at the medal ceremony.

“Even as I was wheeling onto the podium,” she told The Daily Telegraph in 2011, “I didn’t know which medal it was. There was no time for tears when they gave me the gold and played the national anthem. I was too bewildered.”

Despite the chaos, Ms. Maughan described the experience, and the camaraderie, as “marvelous.” She was hooked for life.

Afterward she continued teaching home economics and remained active in her local archery club, where she served as a volunteer. She helped establish the Stoke Paraplegic Athletic Club in Buckinghamshire.

She is survived by a younger sister.

“Although her passing is extremely sad,” Mr. Webborn, of the British Paralympic Association, said in a statement, “the fact that she lived until the age of 91 is testament to the work of Sir Ludwig Guttmann, who transformed the care of people with spinal cord injury, and that through sport, people with disabilities can enjoy rich and fulfilling lives.”

A correction was made on 
June 2, 2020

An earlier version of this obituary misspelled the surname of the neurologist who is considered the father of the Paralympic movement. He was Ludwig Guttmann, not Guttman.

How we handle corrections

Katharine Q. “Kit” Seelye has been the New England bureau chief, based in Boston, since 2012. She previously worked in the Washington bureau for 12 years, has covered six presidential campaigns and was a pioneer in The Times’s online coverage of politics. More about Katharine Q. Seelye

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 29 of the New York edition with the headline: Margaret Maughan, 91, Gold and Silver Medalist At Several Paralympics. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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