Essendon is excited to celebrate its annual Paralympics Australia partnership game in Sunday's clash with Adelaide at Marvel Stadium.
As part of their proud partnership with Paralympics Australia, the Bombers will acknowledge their fellow NEC Hangar residents by having a range of activities in and around Marvel Stadium.
Paralympics Australia helps Australians with disabilities participate in Para-sport and compete at an elite level through partnerships with governments, business, sporting bodies and the community, including the Bombers.
The partnership delivers significant benefits to current and aspiring Paralympians and their coaches across several Paralympics sports.
This includes the provision of training facilities, office and meeting spaces and high-performance resources for our national wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby and Para table tennis teams, who train out of the NEC Hangar.
To kick off the Paralympics Australia match, the Bombers will be hosting a member junior clinic between 11am to 12pm on the field, with 150 Skeeta Fleet members taking part.
At the basketball court outside gate seven, fans will have the opportunity to give several Paralympic sports a go, including badminton, boccia and wheelchair basketball.
Some of Essendon’s Victorian Wheelchair Football League players will also be on hand to teach fans the skills of the game.
Fans are encouraged to be in their seats by 12:35pm as Aunty Joy Murphy performs a Welcome to Country, before Essendon’s match-day hosts have a chat to seven-time Paralympian Danni Di Toro.
Di Toro was co-captain of the Australian Paralympic Team for Tokyo and previously won Paralympic silver and bronze medals in wheelchair tennis - in addition to 10 Australian Open titles - before switching to table tennis prior to the Rio Games in 2016.
Thanks to Under Armour, Winter Paralympian Mitchell Gourley will deliver and present the ball to the umpires just before the first bounce.
Gourley has competed at the past four Winter Games as an alpine skier in the downhill, Super-G, giant slalom, slalom and super combined events, and was the Australian flag bearer at the opening ceremony for the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympic Games.
First bounce for the Bombers’ round four match will be at 1:10pm, so make sure you arrive at Marvel Stadium with plenty of time to explore the Paralympics Australia activations and activities.
