Daphne Jean Hilton (née Ceeney; 7 January 1934 – 25 July 2016) was an Australian
Paralympic
The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaire ...
competitor. She was the first Australian woman to compete at the Paralympic Games.
She won fourteen medals in three Paralympics in archery, athletics, fencing, swimming, and table tennis from 1960 to 1968.
Personal
![Nla](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Nla.int-Daphne_Hilton_with_Greg_Hartung.jpg)
Ceeney was born in the New South Wales town of
Harden-Murrumburrah on 7 January 1934, as the eldest of four children.
She became a paraplegic after breaking her back in a horse-riding accident in 1951 at the age of 17.
She spent 9 months in Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital before returning to Murrumburrah. Eight years after the accident, she moved to Sydney, where she spent six months at the Cherrywood Rehabilitation Centre and then one year at
Mt Wilga Rehabilitation Hospital.
While living at the rehabilitation hospital, she developed her sporting ability and skills.
She was selected as Australia's only female athlete at the
1960 Rome Paralympics.
In 1967, she married Frank Hilton, whom she had met at the Northern Archers Club.
She worked as a shorthand typist until the birth of her twin girls, Nichole and Rachael, in 1970.
She was at the
Royal North Shore Hospital
The Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH) is a major public teaching hospital in Sydney, Australia, located in St Leonards. It serves as a teaching hospital for Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney and has over 600 beds. It is the prin ...
for six months before the delivery, and was the first person with paraplegia to give birth to twins in Australia; a thesis was written about her pregnancy and birth.
She officially opened the athlete's village at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and Paralympics, and was part of the 2000 Paralympic torch relay.
In August 2012, she donated a set of medals from the 1960 Games and three Australian team blazers to the
Australian Paralympic Committee
Paralympics Australia (PA) previously called the Australian Paralympic Committee (APC) (1998–2019) is the National Paralympic Committee in Australia for the Paralympic Games movement. It oversees the preparation and management of Australian tea ...
. She died in Canberra on 25 July 2016 at the age of 82.
Sporting career
1960 Summer Paralympics
Ceeney was the only Australian female competitor at the inaugural
1960 Rome Games. At the games, she won two gold medals in the Women's 50 m Breaststroke complete class 5 and Women's 50 m Crawl complete class 5 events, three silver medals in the Women's St. Nicholas Round open in archery, Women's Club Throw C, and Women's Javelin C events, and a bronze medal in the Women's Shot Put C event.
1962 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games
She won 8 gold medals and one silver medal at the
1962 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games
The First Commonwealth Paraplegic Games were held in Perth, Western Australia from 10 to 17 November 1962. These Games preceded the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games which were held in Perth from 22 November to 1 December of that year. ...
in
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...
,
specifically in athletics, archery and swimming.
1964 Summer Paralympics
At the
1964 Tokyo Games, she won a gold medal in the Women's Doubles C table tennis event with
Marion O'Brien,
a silver medal in the Women's 50 m Freestyle Prone complete class 5 event, and three bronze medals in the Women's Albion Round open in archery, Women's 50 m Freestyle Supine cauda equina, and the Women's Foil Individual (wheelchair fencing) events; she also competed but did not win any medals in athletics events at the 1964 games.
1966 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games
Ceeney won 13 medals including 6 gold medals in swimming fencing, shot put, table tennis and pentathlon at the
1966 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games
The second Commonwealth Paraplegic Games were held in Kingston, Jamaica from 14 to 20 August 1966. There were 133 athletes from 10 countries. The Games were opened by Prince Philip.
Participating nations
The following nations participated at ...
in Jamaica.
At these games, she was the only female member of Australia's
wheelchair basketball
Wheelchair basketball is basketball played by people with varying physical disabilities that disqualify them from playing a non-disabled sport. These include spina bifida, birth defects, cerebral palsy, paralysis due to accident, amputations (of ...
team.
These Games were where she added wheelchair basketball to her repertoire becoming to first female wheelchair basketballer to play in men's competition in Australia.
1968 Summer Paralympics
At the
1968 Tel Aviv Games, she won a silver medal in the Women's 50 m Freestyle class 5 (cauda equina) event and two bronze medals in the Women's 60 m Wheelchair C and Women's Pentathlon special class events.
She retired from Paralympic competition in 1968.
Hilton retired from Paralympic sport with a total of 14 medals which was a record not passed by any Australian Paralympic athlete until 2000.
2002 World Wheelchair Games
In the 1990s, Ceeney came out of retirement and took up
lawn bowls
Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...
in the hope of gaining selection for the
2000 Sydney Paralympics.
The sport was taken off the program after the
1996 Atlanta Paralympics
The 1996 Paralympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, were held from August 16 to 25. It was the first Paralympics to get mass media sponsorship, and had a budget of USD $81 million.
It was the first Paralympic Games where Internatio ...
but Ceeney went on to compete at the 2002
World Wheelchair Games winning a silver in the singles and bronze medal in the pairsand this took place 42 years after her first international sporting success.
She retired from lawn bowls in that year.
Recognition
In 2012, Hilton was one of 31 individuals invited to be an ambassador for the 50 year celebrations of Wheelchair Sports NSW. Hilton was inducted into the
New South Wales Hall of Champions
The New South Wales Hall of Champions is a museum at Australia Avenue, Sydney Olympic Park, New South Wales, Australia. The property is owned by State Sports Centre Trust (State Government). The museum's collection was added to the New South Wa ...
in November 2014.
In December 2016, she was posthumously inducted into the
Australian Paralympic Hall of Fame.
References
External links
Daphne Ceeney – Athletics Australia Results
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ceeney, Daphne
1934 births
2016 deaths
Paralympic archers of Australia
Paralympic athletes of Australia
Female Paralympic swimmers of Australia
Paralympic table tennis players of Australia
Paralympic wheelchair fencers of Australia
Australian female bowls players
Australian female archers
Australian female foil fencers
Archers at the 1960 Summer Paralympics
Athletes (track and field) at the 1960 Summer Paralympics
Swimmers at the 1960 Summer Paralympics
Archers at the 1964 Summer Paralympics
Athletes (track and field) at the 1964 Summer Paralympics
Swimmers at the 1964 Summer Paralympics
Table tennis players at the 1964 Summer Paralympics
Wheelchair fencers at the 1964 Summer Paralympics
Athletes (track and field) at the 1968 Summer Paralympics
Swimmers at the 1968 Summer Paralympics
Medalists at the 1960 Summer Paralympics
Medalists at the 1964 Summer Paralympics
Medalists at the 1968 Summer Paralympics
Paralympic gold medalists for Australia
Paralympic silver medalists for Australia
Paralympic bronze medalists for Australia
Paralympic medalists in archery
Paralympic medalists in athletics (track and field)
Paralympic medalists in swimming
Paralympic medalists in table tennis
Paralympic medalists in wheelchair fencing
Wheelchair category Paralympic competitors
People with paraplegia
Sportswomen from New South Wales
Australian female javelin throwers
Australian female shot putters
Australian female wheelchair racers
Australian pentathletes
Wheelchair javelin throwers
Wheelchair shot putters
Paralympic javelin throwers
Paralympic shot putters