BUILDER – PARA SPORTS – INDUCTED IN 2022
In the mid ’70s, Barb Montemurro answered an ad in the paper looking for volunteers for Variety Village. Soon after she volunteered at the very first Paralympics in Toronto in 1976.
She was so impressed by the athletes, that it began a decades-long career in sports. She joined the Ontario Wheelchair Sport Association, where she held a variety of roles including secretary, sport technical adviser and senior athletics director before becoming president.
Montemurro was a founding member of the Sport Alliance of Ontario and Sport 4 Ontario.
She would later become president of the Canadian Wheelchair Sport Association (CWSA). She was also a member of the Canadian Paralympic Committee board of directors.
A dedicated Toronto Argonauts fan — she had season tickets for 70 years — Montemurro worked to promote a similar sport that could be adapted to wheelchair sports. Originally known as murderball, Montemurro would arrange for pickup games and demonstrations for athletes at the various local and international competitions she attended (including three Paralympics).
Later renamed wheelchair rugby, Montemurro would serve as manager for both the provincial and Canadian junior teams, work as an official at the national level, and was in Atlanta when the sport made its debut as a demonstration sport at the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta, where Canada took the silver medal. It became a full medal sport at the 2000 Paralympics.
She was also a board member for the International Wheelchair Rugby Federation.
Montemurro was a member of the Town of Halton Hills’ accessibility committee for more than a decade, lending her expertise on accessibility issues.
The Canadian Wheelchair Sport Association created an award for outstanding volunteers named in her honour. Montemurro was inducted into the Ontario Wheelchair Sport Association Hall of Fame (2008) and the Canadian Wheelchair Sport Association Hall of Fame (2017).