Team USA’s Melissa Stockwell will be attempting to become the first Paralympic triathlon champion in history at Rio 2016.
Advertisement
“Rio is powered by its people and the Cariocas know what these Games will do for driving social inclusion”.
In a video message, she said: “Among the many special moments of the summer of 2012, there was nothing more inspiring than the way our Paralympics captured the imagination of the world, fundamentally changing attitudes towards disability.
We’ve got nobody going into the Games in our view who isn’t in the correct class of competition”.
Staged from September 7-18, this year’s Paralympics are being held in Latin America/South America for the first time, with two new sports introduced – canoeing and paratriathlon.
The Opening Ceremony marked the official beginning of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games – the world’s largest multi-sport event for disabled athletes.
The extraordinary sight of US Paralympian Aaron Wheelz jumping in his wheelchair from a 55 feet (17 meters) ramp got the crowd on its feet.
Russian Federation was suspended from the Paralympics by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) in early August.
Travel grants to the Paralympic participating nations were belatedly paid after a legal wrangle with federal government.
There were other travails for Craven and the IPC.
Working in partnership with the British Paralympic Association (BPA), UKAD has delivered education to almost 400 Paralympic athletes across 19 sports, via UKAD’s Rio-focussed education programme which began in 2015.
At the 2012 London Paralympics, athletes competed in venues full of spectators who cheered from the first event to the last.
Russian Federation had 267 athlete slots and the IPC has redistributed 240 of them to other nations. This comes in the form of “sponsorships” from three state-run entities including the scandal-plagued oil company Petrobras. Customers recognize her at the sporting goods store where she works. “Let’s not forget who was at fault here”.
Among the highlights, both the Opening Ceremony will be broadcast “live” on Thursday (Sep 8) from 5.00am to 8.20am and the Closing Ceremony on Monday (Sep 19) from 6.55am to 9,00am.
Craven was informed two days ago by Bach that he would be absent to attend the state mourning of his friend and former West Germany president Walter Scheel.
Craven said he’s been assured there are “sufficient resources to put on a very good games”.
Advertisement
“What I can assure you is every athlete is correctly classified as far as we’re aware”.
