Paralympics Athens 2005Johnny Watterson looks at the Paralympics format and marvels at Ireland's proud history in it
The Paralympics is not the Special Olympics. The Paralympics is for physically disabled athletes, whose motivation for taking part in the games is to win medals, set new marks for themselves.
In some instances their world records are comparable to those of Olympic athletes. They are elite athletes, but with a physical disability, which may range from impaired vision to being wheelchair bound or suffering cerebral palsy.
The Paralympics is the greatest sports event for athletes with a disability and the core element is the competitor's athletic achievement, not his or her disability.
As a result, the athletes don't all compete on the same stage, but are graded according to their levels of ability. It is self-evidently pointless to have a wheelchair-bound athlete competing in a sprint event against an arm amputee. Not unlike wrestling or boxing, where athletes are categorised by weight classes, athletes are grouped together in classes, which are defined by the degree of function presented by their disability.
So, throughout a class, the athletes competing against each other should have equal or similar physical functional abilities and the determining factor for success is their particular talent and training.
Generally, there are six different disability groups: amputee, cerebral palsy, visual impairment, spinal cord injury and a group that do not fit in those classes that are called les autres (the others). This year, a limited number of exhibition events for athletes with an intellectual disability will also be included in athletics, swimming, table tennis and basketball.
Marla Runyan is perhaps the most famous Paralympian in recent years. The American athlete, who is visually impaired, competed for her country in the Atlanta Paralympic games of 1996 and won a silver medal.
Four years later she made the decision to take part in the Sydney Olympics and ran her way into the final. Nigerian Adibola Adeoye, who has an arm amputation, holds the men's 100m Paralympic record with 10.72 seconds while USA runner Marlon Shirley, a below the knee amputee can do the distance in 10.97 seconds.
John MacLean, an Australian athlete with paraplegia is the only athlete using a wheelchair who has finished the Iron Man Triathlon in Kona, Hawaii three times.
The Kona event is one of the most difficult Triathlons in the world and includes a 3.8 km swim, 180 km on the bike and a 42.2 km marathon. He was also the first athlete with paraplegia to swim the English Channel.
In other sports, Paralympic athletes have raised world record marks above those achieved by able-bodied athletes. In Powerlifting, Paralympic athletes hold five out of 10 standing world records.
Ahmed Gomaa Mohamed Ahmed, from Egypt, who lifts (bench press style) in the 56 kg class holds one of those records. His mark of 193.5 kg exceeds the non-disabled record by 10 kilograms.
In archery, athletes with a disability have also successfully competed against able-bodied athletes through the years.
In all, there are 19 sports included in Athens of which four are exclusive to the Paralympic Games - Boccia, Goalball, Powerlifting and Wheelchair Rugby - with the remaining 15 sports the same as, or similar to, the Olympic Summer games sports.
Boccia is a type of lawns bowls, but is played on specially marked courts. The aim is for players to throw their coloured leather balls as close as they can to the target ball, the "Jack".
Ireland has six competitors in this event, Gabriel Shelly, Gerard O'Grady, John Cronin, Keith Hayes, Martina Murphy and Roberta Connolly. Shelly and Cronin return in the hope of adding Athens gold to the medals they won in Sydney, Cronin in the pairs with Margaret Grant and Shelly in the singles.
Goalball is a team sport in which participants are blind or visually impaired. The aim is for each team to roll a ball with their hands to a goal while opposing players try to block it. Bells are placed inside the ball so the competitors can track its direction. A feature of this sport is that spectators have to keep absolutely silent while the match is being played.
In recent years television has come on board and covered the events more comprehensively. This year RTÉ have a crew in Athens, where they aim to broadcast a program every two days. But the first Paralympic games were held in Rome in 1960 with 400 athletes from 23 nations involved in eight sports. Figures from the Sydney 2000 Paralympics showed that 300 million people watched the event in approximately 100 countries.
At Sydney, like the Olympic games themselves, the Paralympics had massively expanded from the early exercise in Rome and 3,843 athletes from 123 nations competed. Over the next two weeks over 4,000 athletes will take part in Athens, 41 of them from Ireland.
Since the Paralympics were twined with the Olympic movement in 1988 in Seoul and moved from city to city every four years, Ireland has brought home more gold than the able bodied athletes have since the Olympics were reborn in 1896.
Seoul offered golds in 13 events including a Boccia first from Tom Leahy, who then went on to earn a discus gold in Sydney. Leahy competes again in Athens. Atlanta in 1996 returned just one gold medal when Donegal's Bridie Lynch won the discus event while Sydney's return in medals echoed the rich haul of Seoul. Ireland took first place in five events.
Swimming supplied two gold medals with Mairéad Berry's 100m freestyle and David Malone's 100m Backstroke wins, while Shelly won gold in the Boccia singles and Cronin and Grant in the pairs, Leahy also weighing in with gold in the discus.
Once again medals are expected in the Olympic stadium. Traditionally, those hopes have been realised.
