Renee del Colle

Del Colle was born in either 1967 and 1968,[1] and comes from Calgary, Alberta.[2] Until the age of 12, she played regularly organized basketball in high school in Edmonton but stopped being involved in the sport following injury and illness and failed to be drafted in the Canada national junior women's basketball squad. This was before Del Colle was diagnosed with the incurable autoimmune disease known as lupus in which the antibodies in her blood attack separate organs.[1][2][3] She was listed at 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m); Del Colle did not regularly use a wheelchair while walking but she did in competition.[2] At the age of 21, she took up wheelchair basketball,[1] and learnt of the existence of the Canada women's national wheelchair basketball team in 1991. Del Colle signed up for a tryout with the team and was signed to the 1992 team within half a year.[2] She worked as a news anchor and reporter at multiple Albertan radio stations for half a decade.[3]

Following her joining the Northern Lights wheelchair basketball squad, Del Colle job shared before she left the radio business to get a job working flexible hours at an Edmonton bakery when she was chosen to play for the national team in 1992. She was part of the Canada team that claimed the Wheelchair Basketball World Championship in the United Kingdom by beating the United States in the 1994 final.[3] She partook in the women's tournament in the sport of wheelchair basketball at the 1996 Summer Paralympics in Atlanta, United States. Del Colle contributed to the team finishing first in their group by winning all three of their games and subsequently advancing to the final of the competition.[4] She helped Canada to claim the gold medal in the final match that was held on August 25, 1996.[5] In August 1997, she and her husband Darcy moved to Edmonton from Calgary.[2]

Del Colle was selected as one of five Calgary athletes to represent the Canadian team that competed at the quadrennial Wheelchair Basketball World Championship held in late October 1998 in Sydney, Australia.[1] She scored 18 points as well as three blocked shots and 11 rebounds in Canada's 53–25 semi-final victory over Japan to face the United States in the final.[6] In the final, Del Colle scored 23 points in helping Canada beat the United States 54–38 for the gold medal and their second successive women's world title win.[7] At the 2000 Summer Paralympics, she played for the Canada national wheelchair basketball team in the women's wheelchair basketball tournament as one of five disabled athletes from Calgary, and she first competed in the round-robin group opposite Germany, Japan and Mexico.[2] The team finished first in their group and reached the final that they won to earn Del Colle the second (and final) Paralympic gold medal of her career.[4][8] She contributed Canada's second-highest points total of 10 during the final.[9]

In 2001, Del Colle received City of Calgary Recognition to honor her achievements in wheelchair basketball.[10]