In the chair with...

 Hometown: Bonn , Germany

Current residence: Vancouver, Canada

Achievements:

• Silver Medalist in Singles at the Paralympics in Barcelona 1992 
• Bronze Medallist in singles at the Paralympics in Sydney 2000, Australia
• 1993 World Champion
• 1998 World Team Cup Winner with Germany in Barcelona,. Spain 
• Masters Winner 1997, Eindhoven, Netherlands
• 10 time German Champion (singles and doubles) between 1991 – 2000

Hobbies: basketball, reading (fiction, current events) chess, scuba diving, skiing, guitar, concerts, sailing.

“ To me the wheelchair is a piece of sports equipment. Just as a snowboarder uses his board or a biker uses his race bike, I use my chair to compete. “

Growing up in Europe, Kai Schrameyer played the sports that most German youngsters play, soccer. When his dad, a diplomat for the Federal Republic of Germany, was transferred to Burkina Faso, West Africa, in 1979, Kai adopted tennis as his new passion. “It was wonderful, the weather was great year round and all I did after school – and homework -­‐ was hit tennis balls with my friends until our parents dragged us off the court“ ,Kai recalls with a bright grin on his face. When he returned to Europe in 1982, Brussels( Belgium) was his new home. “I joined a local club and quickly received intensive coaching with an elite group of junior players. I was just on my way to getting really good.” Just after his 15th birthday the traumatic news hit home: Kai was diagnosed with an Osteosarcoma -­‐ a vicious type of puberty bone cancer -­‐ in February of 1983. After initial Chemotherapy, his left leg had to be amputated above the knee. “The first thing I remember after waking up after surgery was no more sports. I was devastated.” After successfully fighting through chemo, Kai was fitted with a prosthesis and went back on a tennis court exactly one year after the amputation to try to hit some balls with his dad: “It was a strange rather frustrating feeling. Here I was on a tennis court, where I once had felt completely at ease and now, it was as if I was a stranger just standing around and not being able to chase any balls down that flew by me at more than 3 feet.” For the next 5 years Kai tried hard to regain some of his mobility and competitiveness, but as time went by he realized, it was not going to happen: “ I kept comparing myself to the tennis player I was prior to my amputation. Obviously that was not fair and not helpful.”

After high school graduation Kai went to study at the University of Michigan in 1988. An experience that changed his life. “ I met Art Humphrey, a wheelchair basketball player, who asked me to come down to one of their practice sessions in Detroit. I went down there not knowing what to expect. What I saw blew my mind ! I was amazed on how good these guys were in their wheelchairs. I tried it and was immediately hooked ! This was the true sport I had been missing for so long !”

Kai returned to Germany and while enrolling into law school at the University of Cologne, he joined a local basketball team. The German national team soon discovered him. Right when his career as an international ball player was to take off, he met Juergen Geider, a German wheelchair tennis player who talked him into giving wheelchair tennis a shot. Says Kai: ” I had never heard of wheelchair tennis before and was not really impressed when I saw some of the local players hit the ball.” That changed dramatically when Kai entered his first wheelchair competition in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1990. He breezed through the beginners division, but was mainly interested in watching “the big dogs,” such as “Mr. Wheelchair tennis” Randy Snow from Austin, Texas, and Frenchman Laurent Giammartini, display their skills. “ I just stood there at the fence with my mouth wide open and watched these guys pound top spin forehands and wicked slice backhands at each other. It was unbelievable ! I watched for hours and decided: this is what I truly want. Here was my real wake up call. I became hooked on wheelchair tennis ! “

Kai started building his world around wheelchair tennis. He started practicing 5 times a week, he found a coach who would charge him a discount rate for lessons, he sent hundreds of sponsorship requests in order to finance his expensive trips. “ I really wanted to find out how good I could get at this” And success came quickly. Kai moved up to the Open division of the Worldwide Wheelchair tennis series run by the ITF and by early 1992 he had made it into the Top 10. At the 1992 Paralympic Games in Barcelona, Schrameyer broke through. He won the silver medal – loosing to his idol Randy Snow in 3 close sets. “ I was exhilarated with my silver medal. Randy was just too clever for me that day ”, Kai recalls at the awards ceremony. In 1993 Kai spent most of the year as the number one ranked player in the world. “ I was at a tournament in Austria, waiting for my first match in the tournament office. I looked as that ranking page came out of the fax machine and felt this overwhelming, deep feeling of achievement. If only for a brief moment in time, I was the best in the world. This is what it must feel like to climb a mountain and look down from the top. ”

Since then Kai Schrameyer has won numerous Open tournaments throughout Europe, 10 German national titles, the 1997 NEC Masters and a bronze medal at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics. “ Sydney was spectacular ! We are used to playing in front of a maximum crowd of a few hundred people. Here we were on center court and 10.000 Australians cheered us on. National TV was covering our matches. We felt like rock stars!“

Even with all his athletic accomplishments, Kai values his educational achievements just as much. “ To get that law degree after so many years of studying felt like winning a 17:15 tie-­‐breaker in the final set of the US Open Finals !” Because of his fathers diplomatic missions Kai lived abroad most of his youth and learned to speak 5 languages (German, English, French, Italian and Spanish). After passing his Bar in 1999, Kai worked for a wheelchair company in Heidelberg for 18 months, before he decided to take on a scholarship offer from Georgia State University in Atlanta to pursue a Masters in Sports Administration: “ I was always intrigued by the organization and marketing of major international sports events. “ After graduating from GSU Kai took up a job offer with Coca-­‐Cola working as Project schedule coordinator for Coca-­‐Cola’s Olympic Project Team Torino 2006. Also, Kai managed to qualify as the only German tennis player to represent his country at the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games.

After the successful completion of the Torino Olympic project, Kai worked in the Coca-­‐Cola Italy office on sports assets for a year, before he decided to embark on another Olympic experience joining the Coca-­‐Cola Vancouver 2010 project team in January 0f 2008.

Having experienced the wonderful Vancouver lifestyle, Kai decided to stay in BC after the successful completion of the Vancouver Olympic Project. “ I was ready to leave the corporate world and get back into Tennis.” In 2010 he accepted a job offer from Tennis Canada as National Coach for wheelchair Tennis. “ I feel that this is something where I can make a true difference in other people’s lives and pass on my passion for wheelchair tennis.”