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Karen Farrell is a wheelchair basketball player from Australia. She won two silver medals at the Paralympic Games.
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Farrell is from Sydney, New South Wales.[1] She became a paraplegic at the age of fifteen, when a car she was a passenger in slid off the road after trying to pass a truck.[1] At the time of the accident, she was not belted into her seat and sustained back, head and neck injuries.[1] Other passengers in the car who were belted in had much less severe injuries.[1] When she is not competing, she works as a Information Technology Consultant.[1]
Farrell is a New South Wales Institute of Sport athlete.[2] She has been a member of the New South Wales women's state basketball team and competed at the national championships.[1] In 2001, she was a scholarship holder at the Australian Institute of Sport.[3] In 2000, she was also sponsored by the Motor Accidents Authority in New South Wales.[4]
Farrell was a member of Australia's national team by 1994. That year and in 1998, she was part of the Australian team that finished third at the Gold Cup tournament.[1] She was part of the silver medal winning Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team [5] at the 2004 Summer Paralympics.[6] She was part of the silver–medal winning Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team [7] at the 2000 Summer Paralympics.[6]
In 2008, Farrell played her club basketball of the Women's National Wheelchair Basketball League (WNWBL)'s Hills Hornets.[8] Her team mates included Liesl Tesch,[8] who was on the same team as Farrell when they earned their 2000 and 2004 Paralympic medals.[9]
In 2008, Farrell was named a Basketball Australia Merit Award winner.[10]