Paralympics - The Olympics with a difference

Added: 12/21/2007

Sir Charles Darwin’s theory may be survival of the fittest. Who but the fittest can only take up a job in the military? Once these men, at their prime become disabled fighting for the nation in the war front, cannot fight for their country anymore. Instead they have to fight against their own disability and come to terms with the kind of life they have to lead. Such men can participate in the Paralympics!

Sir Ludwig Guttmann can rightly be called ’The father of Paralympics’. He organized a sports competition in 1948 which later came to be known as the ‘Stoke Mandeville Games’. In this event he involved veterans from the II World War who were suffering from spinal cord injuries. For the first time in the history an event on the same lines as the Olympic Games for athletes with a disability was held in Rome in the year 1960 and was officially named the 9th Annual International Stoke Mandeville Games. In the year 1976 at Toronto many other disabled categories were also introduced in this international event of sports. Thus was born the first winter Paralympics at Sweden in the very same year.
Athletes from six types of disability categories can participate in the Paralympics sports event. The whole idea behind such an event is not to highlight their disability, but the focus is on their athletic ability. Not only the numbers of participants have increased over the years but number of events has increased too!
This sports event has given many a disabled, a reason to live. Although this event started in the most humble way, today it has been given its due importance. It has been agreed since the Seoul Olympics that the country hosting the Olympics will be required to host the Paralympics event too! The 1960 summer Paralympics which witnessed 400 participants perform from 23 countries had 3806 contestants from 136 countries participating in Athens 2004.
One of the most interesting things is how the participants are decided in the sport events for the physically challenged. It will be justified only when participants in a certain sport having similar disabilities compete with each other. Hence, care has been taking while making these classifications. Participants with similar physical functioning or with similar physical challenge are allowed to compete against one another in a particular sporting event.
A thorough Physical and medical examination of the athlete is done by the technical team an then they group these sportsmen depending upon their ability and disability. The medical team adheres to the technical norms strictly when coming out with the classification.
Paralympics consists of summer Paralympics and winter Paralympics. Some of the important summer Paralympics sports are Archery, Athletics (track and field), Cycling, Football (both 5 and 7-a-side), Judo, Power lifting, Rowing, Sailing, Shooting, Swimming etc. etc. Some athletes using wheel chair can also play Wheelchair basketball, Wheelchair fencing, Wheelchair rugby, Wheelchair tennis etc.
Some of the winter sports included in winter Paralympics are Alpine skiing, Ice sledge hockey, Nordic skiing, Biathlon, Cross-country skiing, Wheelchair curling etc.
The next Paralympics event will be hosted in the Chinese city of Beijing in the year 2008. Vancouver, Canada will host the Winter Paralympics 2010. London will be seen hosting the Paralympics in 2012 and Sochi in 2014.

Rate this article:

Bad

Good

Article comments:

No comments for this article yet. Post your comment now!

Return to top of the page