To coincide with world-wide events connected to International Day of People with a Disability, Inside Sport, with the help of our mates at the Australian Paralympic Committee, brings you this fine gallery of Australian paralympian achievements for 2014. The featured athletes’ success stories help break down misconceptions about disability, promote equal opportunity and highlight the astounding ability that they do have; all key to what International Day of People with a Disability is all about.

What about this for a set of 2014 highlights …

* The Australian wheelchair rugby team took out the world championship to become only the second team in history to hold both the Paralympic gold medal and world title at the same time.

* Australia’s youngest Paralympian, Ben Tudhope, was flag-bearer at the Closing Ceremony of the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Games. This was Tudhope’s first Games; he finished in the top ten in Snowboard Cross – a sport that only debuted this year.

* Sapper Curtis McGrath claimed a canoe world championship, just two years after losing his legs in Afghanistan when he stepped on a landmine. Para-canoe is debuting at Rio in 2016, and those in the know have no doubt he’ll claim gold.

* Wheelchair racer Angie Ballard won gold at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games in the T54 1500m final.

* Kurt Fearnley won his fifth New York Marathon in a time of 1 hour, 30 mins and 55 secs.

* Perth mum Sally Pilbeam won gold at the ITU World Paratriathlon Championships. Sally is 36. Twelve years ago she lost her right arm from her shoulder through cancer.

* Wheelchair basketball star Dylan Alcott, in his first year on the wheelchair tennis scene, was named as the world number-two wheelchair tennis player. A quick rise to the top!

* Wheelchair racer Richard Colman became the first person in a wheelchair to complete Death Road in Bolivia – a 69km track that descends 3500m.

*Australia’s Jess Gallagher and Toby Kane brought home two bronze medals from the Sochi 2014 Winter Paralympic Games.

* Para-rowers Kathryn Ross and Gavin Bellis retained their world title against France, qualifying for Rio 2016 in the process. This feat was actually named in the top 50 moments of 2014 by the International Paralympic Committee.