Paralympic Athletes Kick @$$
Wednesday, 14th May 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (1)
If you are out and about in Beijing these days, it's hard to go far with crossing paths with someone in the sports world. Recently, while braving the crowds and aggressive vendors in search of some bargains at the Silk Market, I noticed a couple of athletic-looking women in wheelchairs. It turned out that they were players on Australia's wheel chair basketball team, in town for a test event for the Paralympic Games taking place in Beijing September 6-17.I was seriously bummed to have missed the action, and even more disappointed when I went to the BOCOG Paralympics Web site to find no information on the recent event.
One Olympics fanatic I know is fond of saying "The Paralympics are like kissing your sister. It's something you do because you have to, but you don't enjoy it." The cities that host the Olympics and the corporate sponsors that are in the game for eyeballs and market share might feel that way, but anyone who truly loves sports should not.
I've personally had the opportunity to watch paraplegic men play ice sledge hockey in New York and blind teenagers play soccer in Kunming, at China's National Paralympic Games in 2007. They are playing a different game—blind soccer has more focus on dribbling skills and less on passing; sledge hockey hinges less on finesse and more on hard checks and brute force—but what these athletes accomplish is remarkable.
In both cases, the game that was borne of these physical limitations wasn't less than its able-bodied counterpart. It wasn't just different, either; it was a display of amazing physical accomplishments without the help of abilities that the rest of us think we can't live without. Those blind kids could dribble circles around a lot of soccer players I know who have 20/20 vision. And I wouldn't get on the rink with those hockey players without very good health insurance.
Paralympians are impressive from a pure athletic standpoint, but they also inspire in a way that able-bodied athletes don't. And for people who find themselves suddenly limited by the loss of a limb or one of their senses, they become role models who offer motivatioin for staying physically and mentally healthy despite this new limitation.
With the Olympic games, and able-bodied sports in general, being bigger and more heavily promoted, China Sports Today will continue to give them more coverage. But just know that when we don't cover the disabled sports world it's not because we are anything less than amazed at the athletic accomplishments on display. And when we do cover them, it certainly doesn't remind us of kissing our sisters.
Tags: blind soccer, paralympics, wheel chair basketball