The Paralympic Games

As the time goes by, it becomes obvious that the Olympic Games are not actually closed after the farewell ceremony takes place. When the Olympic champions are back in their countries celebrating their victory, the arenas where they won are given to disabled people who complete in the Paralympic Games.

The events include disability - specific sports such as judo for visually impaired and soccer for people with cerebral palsy, as well as multi-functional sports such as swimming and athletics which are divided into classes across the range of disability.

Disabled sportsmen and women have been campaigning for years to gain recognition for their achievements. It has been hard to persuade the media that people are in fact interested in hearing about them. But as the Paralympic movement grew it has managed to gain more and more publicity.

Tim Marshall, a disabled member of the British Sports Council, says: "We used to see ourselves as paraplegics, amputees or blind but we are coming to recognize ourselves as swimmers, athletes or skiers. We must now seek to promote our sport as different but equal".

The Paralympic movement has won recognition since the late Sir Ludwig Buttmann, pioneer of the disabled sport, organized the first International Games for Wheelchair Athletes back in 1952. at the last occasion in Seoul, the Korean organizers took the important step of holding the disabled games in the same location as the Olympics after those games had come to a close. Last year Barcelona built on the achievements of the Koreans, because for the first time. Olympic co-ordination committee was responsible for both sporting events. Three thousands of the world's finest disabled athletes from 92 countries were competing in 16 events.

Some athletes want Paralympic events to form part of the Olympics. Indeed, in some sports, such as shooting, disabled competitors already compete successfully at national ablebodied level and the top leg amputee sprinters are less than 2 seconds behind Carl Lewes's best time. Whatever the sport, whatever the disability, they train to win.

Sport is just one way in which disabled people can demonstrate that they can and must be seen not as invalids, but as valid individuals in their own right.

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