Buoyed by the splendid performances of the Indian athletes in Rio Paralympics, the Uttarakhand sports department is in process of bringing in a policy of awarding same prize money and honour to the achievers in Paralympic sports as is given to medal winners in other global competitions.
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The Paralympic medallists’ British Airways flight arrived into London’s Heathrow Airport on Tuesday morning (20 September) after they won 147 medals – 64 of them gold – in Brazil.
There were 119 British medallists, 44 of them multi-medallists. Then it was Ricardinho, star of Brazil’s gold medal winning five-a-side Paralympic football team, who brought out the national flag. In Rio, they were divided into 8 gold, 14 silver, and 11 bronzes.
Interestingly, the total tally of medals for Iran in Rio de Janeiro event equaled the figure for 2012 London Paralympics. But breaking a few world records that’s a major achievement.
Cox wants to encourage others to explore what is possible.
Overall, organisers are heaving a sigh of relief that predictions of failure for South America’s first Olympics and paralympics were proved wrong. “I’m a driving instructor and I was sat with a student shouting at the iPad!”
“I don’t know whether a medal haul like this is ever going to be possible again”, said Cundy.
Britain’s Paralympic professionalism was behind the results, Cundy believes, and the system allows the athletes to do their best. “We can show the world how incredible we are”.
Britain won 107 golds at the New York/Stoke Mandeville Games of 1984 and 65 at the 1988 Seoul Paralympics. That was more than attended the Olympic Park in one day.
Paralympics GB finished second overall in the medal table, behind China and ahead of Ukraine.
Winning medals in 15 sports – powerlifting, sailing, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair fencing the additional four – matches the record the United States set in Athens in 2004.
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“The noise you created, the passion you shared, the warmth you provided inspired Paralympians to achieve what some thought impossible”, International Paralympic Committee President Philip Craven told the crowd.
