The Paralympics have grown into the biggest global sporting event for disabled athletes, from a small gathering of British WWII veterans in 1948.
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Para Sports Foundation general secretary and former worldwide athlete Pradeep Raj has demanded that the 2016 Paralympics, which start in Rio de Janeiro from Wednesday, be broadcast over television.
Petitclerc, who won 21 Paralympic medals – 14 of them gold – over her illustrious wheelchair racing career, can’t argue with the world catching up.
“If that results in a medal, I’d be over the moon”.
The class four category athlete however, described Paralympic Games as the biggest sporting event in the world, which every athlete would love to feature in, while acknowledging that being her second appearance she would be hoping to make it fruitful.
Based on Team Ireland’s performance during the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, where we picked up 16 medals, there are high hopes for achieving a similar or better performance this year. “So we are going to have a great Games”, said IPC President Sir Philip Craven.
Melanie Hawtin, Ontario’s lightning-fast wheelchair basketball player from Oakville who won silver with Team Canada at the 2015 Parapan Am Games. To vote a gay bloke to be in that position to lead them out through that tunnel and out into the Paralympic Games is an wonderful honour.
However, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) this week predicted that the 2016 Games will be a sell-out, with over 1.5million tickets snapped up and the governing body hopeful the remainder will be purchased.
They have swimmer Xu Qing competing in his fourth and possibly last Games, seeking to add to his seven gold medals.
“I am quite a cheeky character and I never thought my fellow athletes would vote for me”.
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“It still was in the back of my mind that dream to go to a Paralympics, so I’m ecstatic that I made it in less than two years”, she said. So they can see the Paralympic Games with all the disabilities. “To walk into a stadium full of people who are there for you – they are there to cheer you on – it’s an awe-inspiring moment”.
