{"id":12846,"date":"2012-10-17T13:34:41","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T11:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/?p=12846"},"modified":"2012-10-16T16:35:12","modified_gmt":"2012-10-16T14:35:12","slug":"paralympics-a-positive-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/2012\/10\/17\/paralympics-a-positive-message\/","title":{"rendered":"Paralympics: A positive message"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you are fighting for human rights, you sometimes tend to see only the things in the world that need a change, and you give them a lot of attention.<\/em>
\n Not today! Today I want to share something amazing with you.<\/em>
\n About a month ago has ended the most famous sports event for people with disabilities. I am saying most famous, because I cannot name any other sports event with such great impact as the Paralympics. I think no one will disagree with me when I say it is an amazing opportunity, and an amazing way of showing us that if you really want something, nothing can stop you.<\/em><\/p>\n

What\u2019s in a name?
\n<\/em><\/strong>Paralympics. We all know the Olympic Games, and also that it is named after the Greek city Olympia, where the first Olympic Games in Ancient Greece were held. But the origin of the word \u2018paralympic\u2019 is probably (and maybe not even) only known by the Greek. \u2018Para\u2019 means \u2018alongside\u2019, which means that it are games organised in parallel to the Olympic Games. \u00b9<\/p>\n

How did it start?<\/strong>
\n<\/em>The only down-side I am going to mention today, is that it did not start with the Ancient Greek. The first humble move on the road to the Paralympic Games as we know them today, was made in 1948 in Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, England. It was Dr. Ludwig Guttmann, a German neurologist who fled to England right before the Second World War and worked at the spinal unit of the hospital, who came up with the idea of having a sports event for his patients. The first sports they played was wheelchair polo, but soon it was replaced by wheelchair basketball. \u00b2 He used it as a treatment, he thought sports (or at least being more active) would help his patients to recover, or at least offer them a new motivation to live. His dream was to organise one day an international sports event for people with disabilities. \u00b3
\nFrom 1952 on the athletes from other countries started to join his games, and in 1960 the number of international participants had grown to 400 people from 23 different countries. It was amazing, but still not perfect: you could only join if you were in a wheelchair. It took another twelve years for people with other disabilities to be able to join. The first official Paralympics were held in Rome in 1976.<\/p>\n

Paralympics today\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/strong>Today we know the Paralympic Winter- and the Paralympic Summer Games. They are organised in parallel to the Olympic Games, and there are around 4000 athletes from 146 different countries competing against each other in 20 different sports.\u00a0 \u2074 Twenty very different kinds of sport, like archery, para-triathlon, swimming, alpine skiing, and wheelchair dancing. There are five major classifications of athletes, which are people with visual disabilities, people with physical disabilities, amputee athletes, persons with cerebral palsy, people with spinal cord injuries, and also there is a group called “les autres”, to which the athletes with other kinds of disabilities belong.\u00b3<\/p>\n

At the beginning I said I was going to tell you something amazing. I think I did, but if I have not convinced you yet, I am going to tell you this:<\/p>\n

The Paralympic Games are the largest multi-sports event in the world, after the Olympic Games! <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Written by Maria Arends, AEGEE-Groningen<\/em><\/p>\n

Featured image licence free:\u00a0‘Sundesigns’:\u00a0http:\/\/www.sxc.hu\/profile\/<\/wbr><\/a><\/em>soundings<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

_________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\u00b9 About the Paralympic Games:<\/em> http:\/\/getset.london2012.com\/en\/the-games\/about-the-olympic-and-paralympic-games\/about-the-paralympic-games<\/a>\u00a0requested on 15-09-2012.<\/p>\n

\u00b2 Sir Ludwig Guttmann and his legacy: <\/em>http:\/\/www.mandevillelegacy.org.uk\/category_id__19_path__0p4p.aspx<\/a>\u00a0requested on 15-09-2012<\/p>\n

\u00b3 History of the Paralympics: <\/em>http:\/\/www.paralympiceducation.ca\/Content\/History\/11%20History%20of%20the%20Paralympics.asp?langid=1<\/a>\u00a0requested on 15-09-2012<\/p>\n

\u2074 The IPC: What do we do? :
\n<\/em>http:\/\/www.paralympic.org\/TheIPC\/WWD\/ParalympicGames<\/a>\u00a0requested on 15-09-2012<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you are fighting for human rights, you sometimes tend to see only the things in the world that need a change, and you give them a lot of attention. Not today! Today I want to share something amazing with you. About a month ago has ended the most famous sports event for people with disabilities. I am saying most… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1823],"tags":[701,714,713],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12846"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12846"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12997,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12846\/revisions\/12997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}