My second cousin is a swimmer who has participated in Paralympics. Sadly I find sports really really boring to watch, but at least I get some updates on facebook about the swimming events in Paralympics and other similar events.
Comment has been collapsed.
The Olympics are about people overcoming obstacles, competing against others and doing more than what is possible for any normal person. Sad that these people are overcoming twice as many of these obstacles are less of a focus... but instead of glory they get respect and acknowledgment which I feel most of those with a disability want. Few things feels better than accomplishing something that every single person who claims to know better says is impossible. :)
Comment has been collapsed.
I found out "para" is short form of the word parallel, not paraplegic, to mean next to the Olympics. .
Comment has been collapsed.
Actually I didn't care about the Olympics either :)
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't understand why this upsets you. It seems like you think the Paralympics should receive roughly the same attention and coverage as the Olympics.
Comment has been collapsed.
If you don't think that the attention should be similar then what do you think? Because even as you deny it you imply it by saying "[i]t's the same thing."
And no, I don't think it's the same thing except the athletes have disabilities. Not when you're talking about the public's general lack of interest. The pool of available talent for paralympic athletes is considerably shallower than for Olympic athletes, and there is a lack of tradition both for athlete participation, and great audience interest. Further, at least in the U.S., as far as I know, there is nothing like Owens angering the Nazis in Berlin by rebuking their claim of Aryan superiority with his feats or the awful massacre in Munich in 1972.
In the United States we have a women's professional basketball league--the WNBA. It is not as popular as the men's professional basketball league--the NBA. But "it's the same thing" because instead of men playing basketball, it's women. But of course, it isn't really the same thing so the level of interest is different.
Comment has been collapsed.
Who said it was a local competition? You still haven't answered any of my questions.
Comment has been collapsed.
I was thinking the same thing.
These Paralympic athletes are so amazing for what they can do, they deserve equal recognition.
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't care Winter Olympics, Summer Olympics, Paralympic, World Cup, NFL, Football league (anyone), Cricket World Cup, Rugby, F1, Indy 500, PGA, NBA, Red Bull X-Games, etc.
Sports events are useless directly, the indirectly impact in communities is amazing.
Comment has been collapsed.
Portugal has the most medaled man in the world on the paralympics i think and he is living with under 300€ a month, and didnt had enough money to go to the olympics, but the kickstart campaign worked well for him fortunaly! :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, I, for instance, didn't care about the main Olympic games, but the whole story with disqualification of our (Russian) team does bother me, it's just seems totally unfair to punish honest athletes as well, they are not responsible for their teammates' cheating - not to mention that the system itself, maintained by officials, not by athletes, is deeply corrupted, yet only the athletes suffer. It's a severe blow to all the disabled community here. So yeah, I care about the Paralympic Games.
Other funny fact: a certain nice TV company owned by Ramzan Kadyrov's (he's a head of Chechnya) friend, Tina Kandelaky, has bought the exclusive rights to broadcast the Paralympic Games and later refused to broadcast them because, I quote, "you ought to have some dignity and respect to the country you live in". I just don't know how to comment this fact without resorting to profanity.
Comment has been collapsed.
It was because it is state sponsored doping. There is a heavy problem with Russian sport at the minute which needs sorting out. See the paralympic games banning as a warning against future doping programmes. The punishment is for the entirity of Russia for having a state sponsored doping system rather than a few individuals who wanted to cheat. This was a nation who wanted to cheat, as such the nation got punished.
It's awful to think a group of fair athletes in that group have been excluded, however for years fair athletes were punished by cheaters so I understand.
I think in this instance because of the sheer number of cheats, how many officials and the fact it made its way to government made it so Russia as a whole had to be banned rather than a lot of individuals.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well thank you for "a nation who wanted to cheat" (me, my family and friends included, I assume). Corrupt government doesn't equal corrupt nation, and not everybody here is a fan of the system. Also, please correct me if I'm wrong, but are you saying that it's ok to punish some honest athletes because before that other honest athlets had been cheated? And once again, the officials didn't suffer any sanctions, only the athletes did. While we are at it, could you please explain to me how the fault of disabled athletes is so much more serious than the fault of the healthy ones (a little hint: who's an easier prey?) I'm as disgusted by this corruption as you are, probably even more (it's my country, and therefore I do feel ashamed), but I don't think the collective punishment is the solution.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think you misunderstood what I'm trying to say. I'm not saying all Russians are cheats, but I am saying that the Russian government were heavily involved in the cheating "a nation who wanted to cheat" was in reference to your government supporting and setting up cheating, not a slight on you or your family and friends.
Comment has been collapsed.
My English is far from perfect, sorry for misunderstanding.
Comment has been collapsed.
What do you feel is the appropriate punishment for a national program of rampant and systemic doping? 28.5% of qualified Russian Summer Olympics athletes were barred but politics plays a much bigger role with the much more visible and heralded Olympic games. I think the Paralympic committee had an easier time just banning the entire Russian NOC. I get that you think it is unfair, but what would be "fair"?
South Africa's NOC was banned for 30 years because of apartheid--obviously this denied athletes from competing who did not support apartheid just as much as it did those who did.
When an individual is caught doping, or a coach/trainer of a group of athletes is caught implementing a doping program, you ban athletes, and coaches from competition. When an entire NOC has a huge, collaborative doping system, maybe it is right to ban the entire NOC.
Comment has been collapsed.
Can't argue with almost everything you've written. The Olympic Games are all about politics here: the dictatorship combined with corruption on every level, wide-spread poverty, illegitimate parlament issuing repressive laws in production quantities (it's often called "the mad printer" here) and so on needs outer enemies to distract people from inner problems. We are constantly being told that we are the greatest nation in the world and that we are surrounded by evil enemies (mainly the USA and Ukraine), and aside from military operations the best way to show our "supremacy" are, of course, the Olympic Games. The whole story with preparations to the Sochy Olympic Games was so ugly that, frankly speaking, most likely I would have been almost ok with banning the main team. But our officials actually put up quite a fight, and, as you've already mentioned, most of the team got to participate in the Games. And then there's a whole other story with the Paralympic team. The Paralympic Games have always been almost invisible here, looks like they are considered to be useless as a political weapon - so there was no press attention, no pressure from the highest levels of government, and therefore virtually no struggle at all. The social importance of the Paralympic Games is obvious, especially for the country where, for example, being tied to a weelchair means home confinement. I get the reasons behind the decision, but it still feels inhumane.
Comment has been collapsed.
I see you mentioned that the Russian officials focused their energy on ensuring that some of their Olympians could compete while not putting up much of a fight about their Paralympians.
I do feel like politics affected both the decisions of the committees as well as the effort put forth by the Russian officials, as you mention, and while I do not know if the Olympic or Paralympic committee made a decision that was more appropriate, I can agree that either way the Russian officials--responsible for this debacle in the first place--sat on their hands for the Paralympians precisely because there is no great outrage to be had due to the exclusion of Russian Paralympians.
I'm glad that still I feel like all the good things about the Olympics outweigh all the shit things about it--almost all of which are due to politics and corporate interests.
Comment has been collapsed.
I care about the Paralympics. :D I care about the Olympics too.
Comment has been collapsed.
The locals care a lot though! Second best-selling Paralympics ever. :)
Comment has been collapsed.
I watched quite a bit of it but for me the problem comes with the confusing grading system used to even out how fair each event is. As a spectator its hard to follow why certain people have been paired together in an event, it seems very unfair at first glance.
I did enjoy the cycling and swimming, was pretty exciting to watch. The weightlifting as well actually whilst I think about it was a very enjoyable watch.
Comment has been collapsed.
http://rio.sportschau.de/rio2016/paralympics/live/index.html is this link working for you?
Comment has been collapsed.
In Hungary the channel M5 has a 24-hours cover of the Paralympics. Sadly it's marginal, not even the main channel for sports...
Comment has been collapsed.
Just another sports event where half the people take drugs.
So, not interested.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ooh, someone hurt?
Professional sports, sponsorship money, politics, prestige = enough reasons to use performance enhancing stuff
But no, I certainly did not play Volleyball for years etc which makes my impression without any virtue of course.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well... I'm not really surprised
It's a bit like female counterpart for any sport: it doesn't really get much attention
Comment has been collapsed.
i don't care about the olympics either. ;) have a bump anyway!
Comment has been collapsed.
We Malaysians have the best Paralympic record yet with 3 Golds and two of them broke the world records! <3
Comment has been collapsed.
23 Comments - Last post 15 minutes ago by lostsoul67
1,092 Comments - Last post 29 minutes ago by FreeFall
13 Comments - Last post 40 minutes ago by WastedYears
23 Comments - Last post 2 hours ago by Aradiel
16 Comments - Last post 3 hours ago by Aerctaure
58 Comments - Last post 3 hours ago by Kurajberovic
11 Comments - Last post 4 hours ago by Warriot
27 Comments - Last post 7 minutes ago by AKSH
97 Comments - Last post 26 minutes ago by SirSage
867 Comments - Last post 34 minutes ago by Disturbed159
45 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by s4k1s
141 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by s4k1s
143 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Peiperissimus
47 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by blalilulelo
...no one seems to be caring about the Paralympic Games... :c
EDIT: I'm not trying to guilt trip anyone, I'm just trying to spark some discussion and awareness about the Games. ^^ And I mean 'not caring' as in the actual broadcasters not covering much and audiences not being receptive to it as much as they were to the Olympics (obviously, if you don't care about sports, this doesn't apply to you).
Comment has been collapsed.