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Just a few days ago Paralympic athletes During the last Winter Games in Beijing, Russian tanks crossed the border into Ukraine.
A year later, Yevni Korinets, from the Zhytomyr region on the Belarusian border, lost a leg in a fierce firefight in Minkivka.
Sometimes life moves faster than a double-amputee sprinter in carbon fiber blades, said Korinets, who will make his Paralympic debut this week as a sitting volleyball player.
Six years ago, Canadian rower Jacob Wasserman was paralyzed from the waist down in a bus crash that killed 16 of his teenage ice hockey teammates. Australian table tennis hopeful Marin was just five when his right arm was bitten off by a brown bear during a family trip to a Chinese zoo.
Also on the bill are double amputee Ibrahim Hamadtu, who plays table tennis with a racket in his mouth, and Iranian sitting volleyball star Morteza Mehzad, who at eight feet tall is the world’s second tallest person but whose right leg is 15 centimeters shorter than his left.
There are 4,000 similar stories in these Olympics, but it would be too easy and too banal to turn the coverage into a saccharine and clichéd tale of triumph, adversity and the limitlessness of life.
But these athletes—with perhaps very few exceptions—are not household names, and even if there isn’t one individual you can define them by based on their disability, the contextual information is valuable.
The Paralympics – the vision of a German-British neurologist who fled his homeland in 1939 – is a sporting story, not a tale of woe. For some, it is a second-chance competition, but for all, it is not a second-rate substitute for a five-ring circus that serves as a warm-up act. No one is brave enough, no one gets a medal for competing and trying hard enough.
The National Lottery has invested a record £68 million into the team, whose success is determined by winning gold, silver and bronze medals.
The opening ceremony takes place at the Place de la Concorde, where Marie Antoinette was guillotined. If you tell Hannah Cockcroft she’s brave, she’ll chop off your head. If you praise fencer Pierce Gilliver for his bravery, you might find yourself impaled by his epee.
Sport predicts Britain will win more than 100 medals, none of which will be won by defeating an opponent.
Teddy Riner is France’s most popular athlete, having won his fifth career judo gold medal and lit the torch at the Olympics.
But he found himself the target of verbal criticism from French Paralympian Sofiane Mechioui for describing athletes from the current Games as “superheroes”. team After his heroics at the Olympics, Mejiau wouldn’t listen.
“We are disabled people and we want to be seen as normal people,” he said. “We are not superheroes, we are athletes. So, come and see us because we are going to perform, we are going to achieve sporting feats, and that’s why you have to come and see us.”
Words – even well-meaning ones – matter, and perhaps the greatest legacy of the Paralympics will be changing deep-seated prejudices about disability.
“Paralympians are here to achieve something greater than personal glory,” International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons said before French President Emmanuel Macron opened the Games.
“They want equality and inclusion for themselves and the 1.3 billion people with disabilities around the world. Through their performances, Paralympic athletes will challenge stigma, change attitudes and redefine the limits of what people think is possible,” he said.
The problem is that these two weeks will soon be forgotten, especially by politicians from different countries who praise the achievements of athletes today and cut their allowances tomorrow.
According to the International Paralympic Committee, people with disabilities make up approximately 15% of the global population, making them the world’s largest marginalized group. Sadly, this number is growing, according to the World Disability Report.
The opening ceremony was, as always, a little weird — a DJ in an ill-fitting dressing gown sang Edith Piaf’s “Non, je ne regrette rien,” which was immediately regrettable — but also had some highlights, including a joyous parade of nations on a perfect summer evening. Olympics 0 Paralympics 1.
Just like a few weeks ago, despite the gloomy skies and heavy rain, Paris’ landmarks lived up to the expectations during the opening night show, with the Eiffel Tower shining golden against the dark night sky.
The Champs-Elysees was the catwalk for more than 4,000 athletes from 168 teams, whose parade was set against the backdrop of the Arc de Triomphe, adorned with the Paralympic Agitos logo under a blood-red sunset.
Four days earlier, the flame had departed from Stoke Mandeville, the sport’s native leafy ‘Olympia’, and once again burned over Paris, ascending in an iconic hot air balloon over the Tuileries Gardens to the sound of Maurice Ravel’s Boléro.
After a short break and recovery, the sport can finally get going again, just don’t call anyone brave.
Aldi is proud to be an official partner of Team GB and the British Paralympic Committee, supporting all athletes Paris 2024.
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