Paralympic Games!

The London 2012 Paralympic Games take place between 29 August and 9 September in London.

You may ask yourself... Paralympic games? What is it?  They are the second largest sporting event in the world, a olimpic competition involving athletes with physical or intellectual disabilities, for instance blindness or mobility impairments. Despite having these problems they have fought very hard to turn into big sportsmen and sportwomen and overcome barriers. They are a great example for all of us!

The name ‘Paralympic’ comes from the Greek word ‘para’ which means ‘beside’ or ‘alongside’. It means a competition held in parallel with the Olympic Games.

London 2012 will be the biggest Paralympic Games ever featuring 4,280 athletes from 166 countries all over the world, who will compete in 20 sports, like athletics, wheelchair basketball, cycling, judo, football 7-a-side, swimming, tennis in wheelchair, archery or sail. Wow, that's impressive!

Like the Olympic Games, Paralympics Games were born in Europe: 

After the World War II, a European doctor called Ludwig Guttmann was working with war soldiers with spinal injuries when he started to think about using sport to help them. He was convinced that making them more active would help re-motivate them after serious injury. So, at the same time as the London Olympic Games in 1948, he organised the first wheelchair games at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in England. It was a big success and four years later international competitors started to come to the event and interest grew. First Paralympics Games took place in Rome, in 1960, and some years later Sweden hosted the first winter games in 1976. Since then Paralympics Games are celebrated every four years.

Did you know that Mandeville is the official Paralympic Mascot for London 2012? It is inspired by Stoke Mandeville, the birthplace of the wheelchair games. Mandeville loves sports and thinks that paralympians are amazing. Its one eye is actually a video camera so that it can record everything that it sees. It has also a light which reflects London taxis. Mandeville is aerodynamic to represent “Spirit In Motion”, the Paralympic motto. It's always ready for action!

Paralympics athletes fight every day to improve themselves and to overcome barriers. They are very brave and love challenges;  if at first they do not succeed, do not lose heart and go forward.

They are admirable!