Disability

Turn on your TV this Sunday November 9 at  2:30 PM to NBC. There will be an in depth  documentary  about the 2008 Paralympic games held in Beijing China. This 90 minute documentary will be narrated by the NBC sports announcer Bob Costas.  This special which has been produced by the Emmy award winning David Michaels will take you on a journey into the lives of eight athletes (who are disabled) plus the wheelchair basketball team.

As you watch this special be prepared to be blown away by what you will see!  As David Michaels said in all his 30 years of covering Olympic sports events never has he seen such a rich tapestry of stories in competition. It reminded him why he fell in love with sports in the first place.

So tune in to see what our team TEAM USA did at the Paralympic games in Beijing.  They earned a  total of 99 medals with outstanding performances by  all.  The American athletes who will be profiled  are from  swimming, track and field ,wheelchair racing ,basketball and yachting.            

Enjoy, Ellie.                                                                                      

The Torch is lit!!

           

The  troupe of disabled dancers celebrate it's arrival 

    

Let The Games Begin

China has done an excellent job of  welcoming the Paralympic team. In Beijing's brand-new airport the Government has spent $1.7 million to lower washbasins and handrails, add Braille signs and transform 214 toilets into the accessible variety. China has started to make progress for its 83 million disabled citizens including providing handicapped-accessible buses; adding wheelchairs at park entrances; installing elevators in the Forbidden City and building miles of bumpy, raised-patterned sidewalks for the blind. Conditions in Beijing are far better than in provincial cities and rural areas though.

In the Paralympic Village itself the entire complex meets the specified accessibility standards to allow athletes independent living conditions.  Tactile and accessible pavements as well as other facilities for people with a disability have also been installed in public areas . The serving tables were all lowered,the passageways were also enlarged and wheelchair traction services by golf carts were also made available. In addition at  the village opening a memorial wall was dedicated to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

 

In the 2008 games in Beijing we had two Paralympic athletes  competing in the Olympic games.

Natalie du Toit a swimmer who carried the flag for South Africa In the opening ceremonies was the first female amputee to compete in an able- bodied Olympic event.     

Natalia Partyka  from Poland also competed in the able-bodied Olympics. She was born with a right arm that ends at the elbow but managed to beat the Chinese at table tennis this summer. However she like Natalie du Toit was not successful in medaling in their able-bodied Olympic events .

  Oscar Pistorius the double amputee known as the blade runner because of his prosthetic legs won a legal battle in May for the right to run in the Beijing Olympics against able- bodied athletes. However he failed to meet the qualifying time in the 400.   He still has his sights set on qualifying in the next Olympics . But he won gold here in the Paralympics and he is  expected to win more.

There have been so many advances in technology that are so helpful in many paralympic sports. These are especially  apparent in the use of prosthetics for amputees' and wheelchair design especially engineered for the sport. Basketball,tennis racing and Rugby specifically.

But there are many sports that are not dependent or appropriate for technology.  In fact it could be a hindrance.  The first sports that comes to mind are swimming,rowing and sailing .Here athletes remove their prosthetic arms or legs before they enter the water or boat.

 

Jessica Long a swimmer from the united states

takes her 4th gold medal  

 

Erin Popovich of the U.S. team claimed her    fourth gold in the woman's 400 M. freestyle in World and in Paralympic record time

 Natalie Dutoit wins 5 gold medals

Rowers also remove their prostheses    

 

 

Gold medal U.S. Sitting Volleyball team                          

                          

 

 

 

Judo

The saddle and other seating arrangements are assistive device's with a modification to stabilize the athlete safely in an appropriate seat a

 

 

 

 

Mclain Ward of the US, riding 'Sapphire' crashes the final fence of the equestrian individual show jumping final

 Britain' Lee Pearson wins his ninth Gold

 

     FENCING

These chairs are anchored with short cord to the floor to allow upper body movements yet prevent the athlete from falling forward

Power lifting- the lower body is anchored

 A well positioned Track and field discus thrower's

 

 Long Jump

Casey Tibbs of U.S. competing to the Right

 

Australia’s Libby Kosmala, 66, did not win a medal in the shooting events at Beijing, but she did compete in her 10th Paralympics. Kosmala has competed in several sports over the years and has won nine golds. And she says, she’ll try to be back for London 2012.

Now we are beginning to see sports where the use of prosthetics are needed and are visible

 

 Eric Bennett of the U,S.

Lear Chuck of the U.S. 

 

Campbell of USA Wins Pentathelon

 

                                           

 

Standing and sitting competing in table tennis

 

We're are now coming to the sports that require Speed.  A prosthetic leg that will allow a man to run 100 meters under 11 seconds . A wheelchair so light and responsive that a basketball player can weave and turn through defenders with speed yet remain durable in a physical game. Or a racing chair which a marathoner will complete more than 26 miles in less than 90 minutes . The athletes below are using these technologically advanced prosthetics and wheelchairs but the skill still remains with each individual athletes to make the most of this.

Joy in achievement of goals

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By: Associated Press

Oscar Pistorius of South Africa (right) runs ahead of Ian Jones of Britain (center) and Jim Bob Bizzell of the United States during the men's 400m T44 final. Pistorius won the gold medal

 

Visually impaired runners work with  guide runners who are equally fast running togeather holding a tether. In field events they must have precise timing with coaches providing the verbal cues. Lucas Prado of Brazil, left, with his guide reacts after he won in the men's 100m T11 final competition

 

 Vlfredo Cuadrado (left) of Spain fights for the ball with Gustavo Maidana of Argentina in a five-a-side soccer match during the Paralympic Games at the Olympic Green Hockey Field

 

Simple Cycle

Cycle duet

Chariots of Fire

Here They Come

Accident !

 

 

 

 

 

Matt cott pressuring Aussie's shooter

 

 championship game

 

 US Woman's Basketball beats Germany for gold

 

Changes in wheelchair's for tennis players came after basketball and racing but they now have their own wheelchair designed to meet the needs of the game.The chairs are very efficient and allow easy fast push and turn.

 Forward Smash

 Serve

 back return

 

Esther Berger from the Netherlands is her countries best wheelchair tennis player. She had not lost a match in the Last 345 matches she has played . However she did lose her first here.But she came back to win Gold.

 

 

Bronze-medal winner France's Florence Gavelliern (right), the Netherlands' gold-medal winner Esther Vergeer (center) and silver-medal winner Korie Homan celebrate their win at the women's wheelchair tennis singles award ceremony at the 2008 Paralympic Games

 

 

 

nt size="5"> Quad Rugby, aka wheelchair Rugby, aka Murder ball.  Murderball is also the name and subject of a terrific documentary you can find at the library.  Oh what those quadriplegics can do!  You've got to watch them go...  (And they don't wear helmets no matter what.)

US wins gold in Wheelchair Rugby

 

Closing Ceremony

 

 

Artists perform at the Closing Ceremony of Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games in the National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest.

 

Of course there were great fireworks at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony.

And the torch is extinguished for another four years

 

The one big difference between the Paralympics and the Olympics was the overwhelming attendance at the Paralympics.  The Birds Nest and the Water Cube was filled with enthusiastic crowds, cheering on the athletes as they performed with pure joy at what they could do!

 I was out in the small lane (alley) behind our house a couple of weeks ago. My neighbor was there with her three year old son . He had to show me how good he could ride his tricycle.  And then he wanted me to watch how fast he could run. He was just so pleased with himself and glowed with my praise!  I had been watching the Olympics at this time and thinking about movement and why the Olympics have lasted so long and the importance they have not only to the individual athlete but also to the rest of us too.

Movement of the body in sports or other activities is something that is universal. Our earliest memories of movement and the praise we received for our progress in the basic milestones from raising our heads to running fast. So watching the superbly,fluid and controlled movements of the athletes bodies in gymnastic,diving, running, swimming and other events allowed us to relate to them. We could understand and feel in our gut the difficulty of their skill and admire the ease with which they appeared to perform them. And of course we related much more when the activity was something similar to which we ourselves  participate in.

No wonder the Olympic games every four years have been so successful. And how natural for us to develop the Paralympic's too!

Go to www.ParalympicSport.TV or www.universalsports.com they both carry them live or on video.

But relating to the athletes in the Paralympic's can be a stretch for some of us. I think I can honestly say that I am much more aware of that this year.  As the Paralympic's are not covered by the television stations I had watched very little of the Paralympic games until 2 years ago when the Winter Paralympic's were on the Internet.  Being a physical therapist I could watch the athlete's perform in their event with their disability and relate to a degree.  Some of my feelings were of both amazement and appreciation of how they adapted but there was none of that gut feeling.

But that was not the case for me with the Beijing Paralympic's . From the beginning of the opening night ceremony I just wanted to cry!  But it wasn't from sadness due to their disability it was more from a sense of joy that they were there and that the world recognized them and that they should be there too.

In the opening ceremonies the weaving of those with disabilities into the artistic program was outstanding . The participants in the  program were the disabled from all over China.  From listening both to the pianist and to the singer who were both blind to the dance using sign language by those who were deaf. And then onto the ballet which included a young girl in a wheel chair who had lost a leg in their recent earthquake also using her arms to the music of "Bolero" .

Then as the athlete's proudly came in using their wheelchairs,assistive devices as well as walking independently I watched not just with amazement but also hope.  The hope that they were representing a new age in China and in the World that there was a place for people who have a disability . 

I understand that able-bodied people cannot fully relate to these athletes from having an understanding with their own bodies. But I do feel that they can relate with an appreciation of how hard these gifted athletes work as well as amazement of how they compensate. And thru their own awareness of how technology is helping them will increase their awareness of how technology can help people with disabilities compensate so much better.

The New York Times recently posted a fascinating article on a Paralympic wheelchair basketball player who's engineered some of the best athletic wheelchairs available.  Check it out at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/sports/othersports/09wheelchair.html It's fascinating.

But I personally feel in order to do this able-bodied people have to  move from being uncomfortable around a person with a disability and feeling bad for them to accepting that there are people with disabilities. And then make the shift in their thinking of the disabled to what they can do with the right environment and tools.

As Natalie du Toit says: " The tragedy of life does not lie in not reaching your goals ;

The tragedy of life lies in not having goals to reach for".

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The first record of the Olympic games was in 776 B.C.in Greece. In them a naked runner, Coroebus (a cook from Elis),won the sole event at the Olympics, a run of approximately 192 meters (210 yards). This made Coroebus the very first Olympic champion in history. These games grew and they continued to be played every four years for nearly 1200  years. The games were abolished in 393 AD by The Roman Emperor Theodosius 1 a Christian because of their pagan in influence.

But 1500 years later Pierre de Courbetin a young Frenchman Influenced by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 began their revival . He recognized the value to the youth in countries like Germany that were emphasizing physical activities. He felt that the youth in France, England and the United States would benefit from sports activities. And further that it would benefit the cause of peace because they could compete with each other in the sporting events not war. Sadly it didn't stop World War 1, World War 11 and other smaller wars  like Korea and Vietnam. But in the cold war with the Soviet Union I think it was a positive force. I remember watching the Olympics and cheering on our nation to beat the Soviet's. And in the 1980 Olympics when our hockey team beat their championship team up in Lake Placid, N.Y. the whole country roared it's thunderous applause.

Now we move on to the Paralympic games. The  Paralympic Games started in 1948.  In England Sir Ludwig Guttmann organized a sports competition involving WW11veterans with spinal cord injuries in England .The flagship sport became wheelchair basketball. Wheelchair basketball games in America began approximately at the same time .The first games were formed by the California and the New England chapters of Paralyzed Veterans of America . For more information check the website below. http://www.abilitymagazine.com/Paralympic_Military.html 

Four years later competitors from the Netherlands joined the games and an international movement was born . In Rome in 1960 athletes with disabilities were officially organized and the name of Paralympic's was given. In 1976 in Toronto more disability groups were added. Today the Paralympic's are an elite sport event for athletes competing in 22 different sports from six different disability groups. Which are : Amputation, Cerebral palsy, Visual impairment, Spinal injuries,The Others and Intellectual. And within these groups there is a classification system for each athlete with their level of disability for each sport.  This is to make competition fare. However,they emphasize their athletic achievemeint rather than their disability . And since 1988 Paralympic games have been held in the same venue as the Olympic games.    The Military is still involved in training paralympic athletes see the video:    http://video.on.nytimes.com/index.jsp?fr_story=f1f4c3004cad46e5bab3dbadabe56865b4121455

In the past A few athletes with disabilities had completed in the Olympics . George Eyser an American won three gold medals in gymnastics with a wooden leg at the 1904 saint Louis games.

Neroli Fairhall a paraplegic from new Zealand competed in archery at the 1984  Los Angeles games. Neroli Fairhall was the first paraplegic to compete in the Olympic Games.

Maria Runyan a legally blind runner from the united states made the final of the 1,500m and 2000 Sydney games and participated in the 5,000 meter at the 2004 Athens Games.