Wheelchair tennis Paralympian receives $1,000 to finance Australian Open trip

San Diego resident David Wagner, a five-time Paralympic Games participant who’s brought home eight medals over the years, now has starter money to help him fund his participation in next year’s Australian Open tennis tournament.

On Thursday morning, the Challenged Athletes Foundation teamed up with EōS Fitness to provide Wagner with a $1,000 check during a workout at an EōS gym in Encinitas.

“It’s going to go directly into more training and probably the next tournament,” Wagner said, grinning after the check presentation.

Wagner, a lifelong athlete who played basketball and tennis in Washington as a child, became a quadriplegic at age 21 after attempting to jump a wave while playing Frisbee on the beach, a press release states. During rehabilitation after his accident, he started playing table tennis.

In the years since, he’s become one of the top wheelchair tennis players in the world. He has collected three gold medals, three silver medals and two bronze ones in Paralympic Games competitions.

Wagner, 51, said Thursday morning that he’s already contemplating participating in his sixth Paralympic Games — the one in Los Angeles in 2028.

“That’s kind of the hope,” he said after patiently posing for dozens of photos at the Encinitas fitness gym. “I hope to give it a run — you get older and it gets harder.”

Bob Babbitt, co-founder of the Challenged Athletes Foundation, said he’s known Wagner for years and he’s definitely driven enough to make it to the Paralympics once again.

“He’s an amazing young man — not young — (but) young for me,” he said, laughing.

Babbitt said he was inspired to establish the Challenged Athletes Foundation in 1985 when he writing about Iron Man competitions for Competitor Magazine. An athlete at one event — Jim MacLaren, an amputee due to a motorcycle accident — placed in the top 20 percent of all the competitors. A few years later he was struck by a vehicle during the biking portion of an Iron Man competition, became a quadriplegic and needed help paying for an adaptive van, Babbitt recalled.

What began as an effort to help one man grew into a foundation that assists athletes with physical disabilities around the world compete in 105 different sports, ranging from baseball for the blind to para-Nordic skilling, Babbitt said. Over the years, the San Diego-based foundation has raised nearly $200 million to support these athletes, he added.

The foundation has given Wagner at least eight grants in the past decade to pay for competition-related expenses and buy fitness equipment. It’s much needed support, Wagner said, mentioning that participating in the Australian Open, which is set for Jan. 12 to Feb. 1, involves a three- to four-week hotel stay, plus costly plane tickets and food expenses.

Wagner added that the organization provides far more than just financial assistance — it creates a network of athletes who can support each other and train together. And, he said, he’d tell someone like his long-ago, recently injured, 21-year-old self to seek out the foundation’s help and try new sports.

“The best advice I was ever given was to jump in and try it … don’t worry about failure, don’t worry about success,” he said.