As with the Olympic Games, with the able-bodied athletes, «touspourchacune.com»will be devoting 3 articles to the Paralympics, albeit for different reasons. While the Olympic Games focused on the tribute paid to women at the opening ceremony, the Paralympics will focus on the fight that women and men must wage together to achieve better integration of people with disabilities.
Yes, whenever the unity of men and women can make a difference for a cause,«touspourchacune.com» will encourage and support this rapprochement.
But before we go any further, it’s important to understand what the Paralympics are all about. According to Franctvinfo,
«Athletes are grouped into different sporting classes or categories, ensuring that the impact of each person’s disability is minimised and that everyone has a fair chance of sporting success during competitions’ »
The importance of classification should therefore be noted…
Still according to Francetvinfo, we are informed that there are several classifications for sport: para-athletes with the same disability, competing against each other, for example,
«Cerebral
palsy, the visually impaired, wheelchair athletes… In para-swimming, there is an integrated model: swimmers with different disabilities can compete against each other but, via the classification, it will be accepted that their ability to perform in the water is comparable… In team sports such as wheelchair
basketball or wheelchair rugby, a points system is awarded to each player
according to their disability»
«… Before
being classified by their federation, the athlete must have a clear diagnosis
of the nature of their disability… Not all disabilities are eligible… On
the other hand, it is impossible for people with a hearing impairment or with
cardiovascular or metabolic problems to join the Paralympic movement»
During the opening ceremony, it was wonderful to see the para-athletes arrive from the top of the Champs-Elysées and make their way down to the Place de la Concorde, cheered and applauded by the crowd. It was magnificent to see the performances of the artists, able-bodied or not, all synchronised. And it was wonderful to see 5 para-athletes, 3 men and 2 women (difficult to have parity when the number is odd) lighting up the Olympic cauldron. This was another first for the Olympics, given that two athletes lighting the cauldron was already a first.
