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Often I feel uncomfortable when I see parapalegics struggle to accomplish their tasks - I hope these Olympics change that.
Chatting with 2012 U.S. Paralympic Wheelchair Tennis Team Hopeful David Wagner
By Ros Dumlao | Apr 10, 2012, 11:15 AM ET
David Wagner wants his No. 1 ranking back.
At the Australian Open in January, Wagner lost in the finals and dropped to the No. 2 ranking in the quadriplegic singles division.
Although Wagner seems to have secured a ticket to the London 2012 Paralympic Games, with the top-40 ranked players qualifying by May, he refuses to settle for less than being the world’s best. He has a chance to earn enough points to reclaim the top seed at his upcoming matches – Japan Open and World Team Cup in May – and give himself a good position to win his first-ever Paralympic gold medal in singles competition.
On Sunday, Wagner defeated No. 1 U.K.’s Peter Norfolk to win his third straight Florida Open, which was also his 12th career Super Series title.
The two-time Paralympian won silver in Athens. Then, at Beijing in 2008, he had to defeat fellow teammate Nick Taylor (ranked No. 5 in quad singles) for the bronze medal. The irony for both Wagner and Taylor is that they are also doubles partners and won gold together at the 2004 and 2008 Games.
Wagner talked about that irony, his preparation for London and more.
How do you stay competitive in your matches leading to London, knowing that you unofficially have a spot in the 2012 Paralympics?
DW: “I want to be No. 1; I want to be the best. I don’t want to just go through the motions. So I’m training not just, obviously, for the Games. I’m training between now and then to be the No. 1 seed for the Games, to keep my seeding for the Games because the seeds are important as well. So I have small goals in between, with the major goal of winning the Paralympics.”
This will be your third Paralympic Games. How different does this year feel than your past Games years?
DW: “In disabled sports, I think the Paralympics is the pinnacle of what everybody is competing for. Fortunately for us, tennis, we’ve got Grand Slams, which, inside of the tennis community, are probably more important than the Paralympics.
As far as tennis itself, you hear of Roland Garros, Wimbledon, Australian Open, U.S. Open, those four majors are of the utmost important in the tennis community. So for the last three years, it’s been gearing up for each Grand Slam event, and you try to peak at those events.
So this year, you throw in the Grand Slam, and you also add in the Paralympics, so it’s a special year. Any time you’ve got another major event which happens to be one that comes every four years, it’s great.”
Can you relive your first Paralympic Games back in 2004 in Athens?
DW: “It was a dream come true. You don’t know what’s going to happen when you’re in the match. And obviously that’s why you play it. I had a tough battle with Nick in the semifinals (singles) for a chance to play for the silver or gold medal. It’s definitely just a dream come true to not only bet here competing, but also to be at the top of the game and be in the hunt for a medal and then contention for a medal. Going in, I think I already had higher expectations because I had already been established as a high player. But you never know with our sport what can happen. Anyone can beat anyone.”
What it was like to play against Nick in the singles and then later team up in doubles?
DW: “We’re probably a little better at it than others because it happens to us all the time. I play against Nick in almost every single tournament we go to. I’m either going to play him in the semis or the finals because he’s usually the four seed and I’m usually the one or two seed. And we still have doubles later in the tournament. So we’re familiar with that happening.
Now obviously that sucks because you want to see as many Americans with medals as possible in the Paralympics. It’s not enjoyable, but it’s another person on the other side of the court that is trying to prevent you from doing your job, which is to win.
When I’m playing him, I don’t look at it as if it’s Nick Taylor, my doubles partner. I just look at it as it’s my next person in competition.”
Describe chemistry between you and Nick on and off the court.
DW: “First and foremost, we’re friends, and we enjoy each other’s company. We talk outside of tennis, not just about tennis but about life and others things as well. So I think that gives a healthy balance, not just tennis, tennis, tennis.
And on the court, our chemistry is just as good. We’ve played together since 2003, and we gel together. Like I said, with our game style, his style of play, staying back and hitting the ball deep and driving the ball through the court allows me to be aggressive and offensive at the net.”
What sports did you play growing up?
DW: Before I got hurt, I was really into basketball. And I loved basketball more than anything. In high school, I played on the basketball team and golf team. And after graduating high school, I took a little time off from basketball.
Then I decided to do a little tennis when I was with the community college out there in Walla Walla, Wash. They had open tryouts, and I went in and tried out. I did well. I made the team, and I played No. 2 singles and No. 1 doubles for the community college team. I had never played tennis in my life. I was just really athletic, and I enjoyed sports; it just comes naturally for me.”
So you never picked up a racquet before college?
DW: “I wouldn’t say I never picked up a racquet. I remember being a kid and being on the tennis courts and trying to hit home runs over the fence. I never took a racquet and sat down to learn how to serve or hit a forehand or play tennis, so to speak. But I enjoy watching sports, so when the Grand Slams were on, I’d enjoy watching them.”
Was your family very athletic as well?
DW: “I have a (older) sister, and my mother and father were both extremely athletic and extremely musical. My sister got all of my parent’s musical talent, and I got all of my parent’s athletic talent. I am the least musical person in the world probably but extremely athletic. And my sister is the least athletic person in the world but extremely musical.”
For someone very athletic to become paralyzed, what was it like then when you were 21 and had your injury? What happened that day?
DW: “My buddy and I were on the beach, and I ran into the water and got tossed around by the wave. I landed on my neck and became paralyzed.
At first, I didn’t know what went on until my buddy pulled me out of the ocean and put me on the sand. I was just lying there, trying to figure out what was going on. And I just kept saying, ‘Oh I just have a stinger, and in a while I’ll be back to normal and be back up. Let my lie here and shake it off a bit.’
Obviously that never happened, and I think it’s shock when you’re extremely athletic and sports is a big part of your life that it feels like it’s taken away from you, and it can never happen again.
The fortunate part for me was that I had friends and family who visited me in rehabilitation, and they would treat me the same as before I had my accident. They would tease me, and we would try to do the same things that we had done before.
One of the biggest things was when my buddies would come and visit me in the hospital, and we would go play ping pong. I could be competitive and be in a tough battle against them, and it brought back that competitive, athletic spirit in me. It was great because I could do something I used to do with the other guys when we played sports.”
How did you get introduced to wheelchair tennis?
DW: “I was with my girlfriend at the time, and she was a tennis player, and I saw an ad in Sports N’ Spokes magazine of a wheelchair tennis team being in Portland, Ore. Of course, once I saw that ad, I knew I was going.
My girlfriend and I went out and tried to hit tennis balls, but I had no idea what I was doing. I was in my everyday chair. I didn’t have any assistive advices or anything to help me in any way, shape or form, didn’t know how to hold the racquet. I was just trying to do everything the way I did before.
I was like, ‘This is ridiculous. Paraplegics don’t play tennis.’ But then in 1999, I went to that wheelchair tennis camp, and it was the U.S. Paralyzed Veterans of America tennis camp, where Dan James, Rick Draney and Randy Snow, who are all kind of the pioneers to USA wheelchair tennis, were there. I was able to learn from them. I was able to learn from the best of the best in the business at the time and probably in the history of the sport.”
What are your plans after the Games? Do you plan to do anything with your elementary education degree?
DW: “No, I don’t think I will teach. I don’t know that for a fact. That’s just my thought right now. I’d love to maybe get into some coaching and train some players and get involved with tennis because I do love the sport. It’s given so much to me, and I want to give some back.
I don’t think I’m close to being done yet. I think there’s so much more I can play, and hopefully I can stay healthy and peak in 2016.”
Do you have any rituals before and/or during matches?
DW: “I don’t really have any ritual that I do every single time. But I guess the only ritual I would say I try to do is if where we’re playing has a nice locker room and shower, I would take a shower before my match. I like to be refreshed after practice and warming up. But I’m not a guy who puts his headphones on and listens to music. I just kind of prepare with my warm up, focus on who I’m playing, and the task at hand.”
Who was your role model growing up?
DW: “For me, growing up, like most people’s role model, was Michael Jordan. I really followed his career, and I loved how he tried to be the best he could be. So as far as my role model in athletics, it’d be him. And then my role model in life, I would say, is my mom.”
Is there a Paralympian who has inspired you?
DW: “Yeah, for sure. Randy Snow, and his ability to dominate in tennis and do so well in basketball as well. Rick Draney, who is another athlete on top of the tennis world and got a gold medal in rugby in Sydney in 2000.”
If you could play any other sport besides wheelchair tennis, what would it be?
DW: “I would like to play golf professionally.”
How about a Paralympic sport?
DW: “I think downhill snow skiing. Sounds pretty cool, but I’ve never done it, yet. I plan on it. I just want to wait when I’m done competing because I don’t want to get hurt. Wheelchair rugby is also a good sport.”
What was your favorite place you’ve traveled to, and where else would you like to go?
DW: “One of my favorite places is Belgium. We had a tournament out there. And I loved Australia. Those are my two favorite places to be.
One of the places I would really like to go is Russia. And for some reason, the Arctic has always intrigued me, but then again, there’s not a whole lot of tennis there.”
What’s your favorite food?
DW: “Probably ice cream.”
What flavor?
DW: “Anything with chocolate.”
Any special toppings to go with it?
DW: “Just chocolate with more chocolate and more chocolate and more chocolate.”
Of all the places you’ve been to, which has the best food?
DW: “I would say the Belgium chocolates. Put some chocolate on a waffle, and it’s pretty good.”
Wagner will play at these tournaments before the London 2012 Paralympic Games: Atlanta Open (May 9-13); Japan Open (May 14-19); World Team Cup (May 21-27); and French Open (June 26-July 1).
http://www2.teamusa.org/US-Paralympics/Features/2012/April/10/Chatting-with-2012-US-Paralympic-Wheelchair-Tennis-Team-Hopeful-David-Wagner.aspx
Quite possibly the most remarkable tennis match in Paralympic Games history ended on Sunday
with Esther Vergeer (NED) clinching a third straight women's singles Paralympic gold medal at
Olympic Green Tennis Centre after a 62 46 76(5) victory over second seed Korie Homan (NED).
Uploaded by estherfan10 on Dec 5, 2009
Paralympics Beijing 2008. Women's Tennis Gold Medal Match. Korie Homan vs Esther Vergeer
A Sprint and Leap Into the Unknown
Lex Gillette, left, with his guide, Wesley Williams, at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif.
By MARY PILON
Published: July 22, 2012 14 Comments
CHULA VISTA, Calif. — Wesley Williams placed his arms on the shoulders of Lex Gillette, a blind long jumper, to line him up on the runway, then guided him down the track to let him feel the landing pit. Gillette made a couple of small hops into the sand.
Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times
Lex Gillette will be competing in the Paralympics, which begins in London two weeks after the Olympic Games.
Williams then steered Gillette back to the start of the runway and put him as far to the left in the lane as possible, because Gillette usually veers right when he runs. After positioning him, Williams stood down the runway, in the middle of the lane, at the lip of the sand pit. He raised his arms in the air and, with the steady precision of a drummer, began to clap.
“Lai! Lai! Lai! Lai! Lai! Lai!” Williams shouted, using the Chinese word for “come” because he finds that it carries better in the din of stadium noise at competitions.
Relying heavily on muscle memory, Gillette sprinted down the track. He knew to jump on his 16th step, after more than 108 feet. He listened to Williams’s call as confirmation that he was running straight. As he approached the sand, Williams stepped to the side.
When Gillette, 27, sprints down the runway, he cannot see where he is going. He cannot see the line he is supposed to jump from, and as he soars through the air, he cannot tell when or where he is going to land.
Gillette, with the help of Williams, his guide, holds the world record for his classification of the Paralympics, at 6.73 meters, or a little more than 22 feet.
“The first time I saw him jump,” his mother, Verdina Gillette-Simms, said, “I thought, ‘Oh, my God.’ You have to develop trust. You’re putting your son’s life in someone else’s hands.”
The United States has a robust Paralympic program and will be expected to finish near the top of the medal standings at this summer’s Games in London, which begin two weeks after the Olympics.
The United States will send 54 Paralympians, second only to China, and five of the American athletes are visually impaired.
But of the 58,000 children who are visually impaired in the United States, 70 percent are not afforded the opportunity to participate in meaningful physical activity, according to the United States Association of Blind Athletes.
Many blind athletes have lost opportunities because of cuts to physical education programs, and a stigma still exists, coaches and athletes said, that leaves parents concerned that sports put blind children in harm’s way.
“It’s not easy,” Gillette said, pedaling on a stationary bike next to the track here one morning. “It’s taken years and years of work.”
Blind since he was 8, Gillette has been training here with a focus on winning a gold medal this summer. He won silver in Athens in 2004 and in Beijing in 2008. He set the Paralympic record this spring at a meet in Arizona.
Gillette grew up in Raleigh, N.C., raised primarily by his mother, who has been legally blind since she was 18 because of glaucoma. Gillette was born healthy and with the ability to see.
At 3, doctors discovered that Gillette had a cataract, a cloudy film, in his left eye. But in recovery from treating the cataract, he sustained a retinal detachment and completely lost the vision in his left eye.
The partial blindness did not stop Gillette. “He would jump off everything there was,” Gillette-Simms said.
His vision began deteriorating again when he was 8, and over the course of a year, he had 10 operations. While her son was wheeled into the operating room for one procedure, Gillette-Simms said she heard the thumping of his fists and feet and a piercing scream.
“I think that’s the moment I realized he wasn’t going to see again,” she said.
Gillette picked up Braille quickly but resisted using a cane, even when taking the garbage out, preferring to listen for the sounds of cars coming down the street. He stayed active, playing basketball and even taking long bike rides with his mother.
“I always had him involved in things,” Gillette-Simms said. “I wanted him to be a well-rounded individual.”
He said his memory of what a track looked like was fuzzy. “It’s kind of like a dream that never fades away,” he said.
Gillette ran by himself, around his neighborhood where he remembered the curves, bends and bumps of the sidewalks. The apartment complex they lived in had several tiered ledges and curbs, ideal for jumping. Gillette-Simms let him leap, and sometimes fall, leaving him with scrapes and bruises.
“I rubbed it, kissed it, and put him right back up there,” she said.
At his public high school, Gillette was paired with Brian Whitmer, a visual impairment specialist. Whitmer took Gillette to a sports program in Michigan for visually impaired students toward the end of his sophomore year. One of the activities at the camp was long jumping. At first, Gillette was resistant.
“I said, ‘You have to at least try,’ ” Whitmer said. Gillette soared. “I freaked out,” Whitmer said.
After the camp, Gillette decided he wanted to join his high school track and field team his junior year, but he knew he lagged his sighted peers. That summer, Whitmer and Gillette met at least three times a week for training sessions on the high school track as Whitmer — who is also legally blind but can make out large shapes — tried to teach Gillette how to jump.
Whitmer called the process “really frustrating.”
There were myriad contusions and twisted ankles. Gillette ran crookedly, did not tuck his knees up high enough or failed to time his leaps properly. But he relished it.
“I felt like I was flying,” he said.
By his senior year, he was a co-captain of his track and field team, and after graduation, he attended East Carolina University. He continued to work out on his own and compete in Paralympic competitions, including the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, where he was paired with Jerome Avery, a guide runner.
In Paralympic sprinting events, a guide runner runs alongside an athlete, sometimes with a tether, while verbalizing directions. For the long jump, the guide must be stationary and use verbal cues to guide the athlete.
“It’s a huge trust issue,” Gillette said. “Nobody wants to fall or hit the pit.”
After graduating from college, Gillette moved here in January 2008 to train at the Olympic training facility. He was paired with Williams, 29, a full-time guide runner who had been a college sprinter at California State University at Northridge.
For the last four years, the two have shared a suite in the housing facility, trained with each other six days a week and eaten most of their meals together. They said they consider themselves brothers. They often communicate, much to each other’s bafflement, in nonverbal cues, Williams guiding Gillette through drills with subtle nudges.
Gillette hurled a medicine ball back and forth on the grass next to the track, ruminating on what it would take to win gold in London, and then what lies beyond. What about beating his world record? And might he be able to compete in the Olympics? His best jump is more than four feet short of the Olympic qualifying standard.
“It’s getting to a point where you can commit to just jumping,” he said. “And being free and not having any limitations.”
A version of this article appeared in print on July 23, 2012, on page F15 of the New York edition with the headline: A Sprint and Leap Into the Unknown.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/sports/olympics/in-paralympics-long-jumping-a-sprint-and-leap-into-the-unknown.html?pagewanted=all
Paralympic Shooter’s Goal: More Soldiers Competing
May 17, 2012, 10:21 am Comment
By MARY PILON
DALLAS — If Iraq veteran Josh Olson has his way, by the next Paralympic Games, there will be 23 more versions of him.
Sgt. First Class Olson, who will compete in air rifle shooting in London this summer, is helping lead a new initiative to introduce disabled members of the military to the Paralympic movement.
Despite the tens of thousands of wounded veterans who have returned home from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has still lagged behind its international competitors in Paralympic shooting, Olson said.
Starting this fall, Olson will lead 24 wounded soldiers in an elite marksmanship unit, much like the one he currently trains with in Fort Benning, Ga.
Olson began basic training in 1997 and served tours in Kosovo and later in Iraq. It was there in 2003 that he was involved in an ambush that blew off one of his legs. “I took the entire blast right in my thigh,” Olson said, gesturing to where his leg would be.
After losing his leg, Olson spent 18 months at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He had to retrain himself to walk (either on crutches or using a prosthesis), drive and get around a household.
“A lot of people take going to the mall for granted,” Olson said. “But when you get a guy on a prosthesis for the first time or a guy who is on crutches or in a wheelchair, going to the mall is a totally different experience.”
It was at Walter Reed that Olson participated in a shooting event. As a soldier, he trained with human-sized targets, but had never had to nail a target smaller than a dime, as required in international shooting. He hit 49 of his first 50 shots. “I had no clue I was able to do that,” Olson said.
The United States will only send two competitors in a field of 15 to 20 (depending on trials) that will compete in the Paralympics.
The gap may have something to do with shooting style, Olson said. While most countries use only the international style of shooting, U.S. shooters use dozens of different styles: long-range, short-range, pistol, shotgun and others.
“Every little town in Germany has a range in it,” Olson said. “Here in the U.S., it’s harder to find a range you can train for international competitions in.”
International shooting is more focused on precision and repetition. “A lot of people compare it to golf,” Olson said.
The team will have 24 soldiers, 12 shooters and 12 instructors and when those instructors aren’t teaching, they’ll be competing, Olson said.
“In soldiers you have everything you want in an athlete,” Olson said. “You have discipline, you have fitness you have mental toughness and they can handle stressful situations.”
Focusing on a sport can also have healing benefits for soldiers coping with post-traumatic stress disorder, Olson said.
“You give them something to keep them occupied,” he said. “Something to work for, something to work on, I think it’s one of the best therapy things for them. Maybe if it’s not shooting, maybe it’s picking up a basketball or running, something to get all that energy out.”
Olson said he trains four to six hours a day, five to six days a week, sometimes more, a regime he will maintain as he heads toward the Games in London.
“I got knocked down once,” he said. “But I’m not out.”
http://london2012.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/paralympic-shooters-goal-more-soldiers-competing/
Cyclist Heads for Paralympics
By J. DAVID GOODMAN
Published: April 13, 2012
AFTER months of training, the word came on Monday: Damian Lopez Alfonso, the Cuban bicycle racer who lost both arms in a childhood accident, would be going to London to compete in the 2012 Paralympic Games.
It was the culmination of years of struggle for the 35-year-old racer, the subject of a June 12, 2011 Metropolitan cover story.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/nyregion/cyclists-embrace-a-handless-cuban-who-wants-to-race.html?sq=damain%20alfonso&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1346457729-cKuEbZC6t9ZLI0EQgkjWEg
Mr. Alfonso’s road to the Paralympics began when he was 13 years old. An accident while retrieving a kite from a power line near his Havana home disfigured his face and destroyed both arms up to the elbow. He began riding a bike to get around, and then used it to prove himself.
Over years of riding on pocked Cuban highways, he developed an unorthodox riding style, in which he balanced the ends of his elbows on upturned handlebars. That, and his prowess on his bike gained the attention of American cyclists, but it was not acceptable to cycling’s international rule makers, who require that Paralympic riders use a conventional setup for their bikes.
A group of New York-area supporters banded together to bring him to the city for a series of reconstructive surgeries and fittings with prosthetics that would let him hold the handlebars, donating spare bedrooms and money, expertise and time. In July 2011, he entered his first official qualifying race, less than a month after being released from NYU Langone Medical Center from the last round of extensive facial work. “He was woefully underprepared,” said Tracy Lea, a former elite racer from Maryland and his chief international booster. But he had to be there to show that he was on the circuit, she said.
The first big test came in November in Guadalajara, Mexico, at a Pan-American competition. And that’s where his journey nearly ended.
“It was almost a total disaster,” Ms. Lea said.
First, Mr. Alfonso’s specially-designed bike — outfitted with state-of-the-art Shimano electric shifters to allow him greater control — was damaged before the start of the first race. Then, during the time trial race, he crashed.
A medical team thought he would not be able to keep racing, Ms. Lea said, and he had stitches in one of his elbows, making the prosthetics painful to wear. “He was back to his old position,” she said.
But after the authorities granted him an exemption, he ended up taking fourth in the road race.
He also found he was something of a celebrity in Mexico. Some fans even sought his autograph, waving copies of the latest issue of a Spanish-language People Magazine that had a two-page spread on him, Ms. Lea said.
But because he had not competed in enough races, Mr. Alfonso was unable to qualify automatically for the Paralympics and needed a wild-card spot. Last month, he made his case on the bike at the para-cycling championships in Los Angeles, overcoming a challenge on the track from an equally matched Costa Rican rider. Mr. Alfonso, now a member of the Cuban national cycling team, got a letter last week saying he had been granted a wild card.
Now he is looking to the Paralympics in August, where he will be his country’s only cyclist, spending most days at the Cuban national cycling facility — where it was difficult to immediately reach him by phone — and adapting to new, more comfortable prosthetics, Ms. Lea said.
“He’s moving up the food chain,” she said. “He’s gone from the equivalent of junior racing to now being on the world playing field.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 22, 2012
A picture credit last Sunday with an article about Damian Lopez Alfonso, the Cuban bicycle racer who lost both arms in a childhood accident and who will compete in the 2012 Paralympic Games, misspelled the surname of the photographer. Pat Benson (not Banson) took the picture of Mr. Alfonso.
A version of this article appeared in print on April 15, 2012, on page MB8 of the New York edition with the headline: Cyclist Heads for Paralympics
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/nyregion/the-cyclist-damian-lopez-alfonso-heads-for-paralympics.html?_r=1
good start BOR .. is always disappointing to read public attitudes as
expressed there .. on to actual activity, 1st seen this morning my .. lol ..
Women's Wheelchair Basketball final (4) - Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games
Silence please!
Why noise is frowned upon in the Paralympic sport of goalball
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GOALBALL
Goalball is played by visually impaired athletes and a special rule means there is no need for classification.
Participants wear black-out masks to ensure everyone, whether blind or visually impaired, competes equally. The masks are checked during the game.
The ball has bells inside it to help to orientate the players and, as a result, the game is played in total silence.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/disability-sport/18934366
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Blind man watching goalball - silence please
Damon Rose | 09:45 UK time, Friday, 31 August 2012
At the Copper Box in the Olympic Park on Thursday, there's no expectation of gold, silver or bronze for Team GB.
On day one of the blind person's sport of goalball, Britain's men are up against world champions Lithuania, and the women play China - who also happen to be the women's world champions. Perhaps not the most promising of starts for our teams. But these are the group stages, with no knockouts at this stage.
I've not experienced the game since playing it as a pupil at a special school for blind children in Worcester in the early 1990s. It's a lot of fun to play, but I'm not sure how it will fare as a spectator sport, especially for sighted people. It has nothing to do with hand-eye coordination, as it is all about sounds and listening out for the heavy bell ball that jingles as it moves.
There are only six players on court at any one time, three for each team. All wear eyeshades with eye pads underneath to make absolutely sure no-one with residual vision has an advantage. Touch your eyeshades at the wrong time during a game and you face a penalty. Audio is all important and the crowd must keep absolutely silent while play is in progress.
The very simple idea is that you try to throw the ball past the opposition players and into the goal which stretches the entire width of the court.
Despite feeling like I've come home to an accessible sport, I immediate encounter problems trying to enjoy the game - the audio description headset isn't delivering the descriptive commentary I expect.
Damon Rose
It turns out no-one is providing the extra commentary blind people are coming to expect at events and as an aid to watching television programmes at home. Oh, the irony that the only members of the crowd who can't enjoy the blind football are those who can't see. Luckily, I have an assistant who is able to give me his, albeit unprofessional, take as we both get to grips with the rules.
The GB men lose 11 goals to one as the far bulkier Lithuanians systematically outclassed them.
I bump into an old school pal whose partner is on the women's goalball team. The connections continue - the GB men's team includes brothers Adam and David Knott, and their teammate Michael Sharkey has a sister - Anna - on the women's team. I'm told my former gym teacher might be involved with the squad. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm expected to lend a hand, it's such a small community.
Bjork's quirky song It's Oh So Quiet rings out after each goal and time-out to remind the audience of their responsibility to the athletes. Videos featuring Helen Mirran, Daniel Radcliffe and other British celebrities reinforce the importance of silence by imploring us all to shush or "button it". When mobile phones go off, or babies cry, the audience tenses and officials shout before allowing the game to recommence.
The balls bounce or skim from end to end, depending on the tactic of the players. If they remain on the ground, they make more noise and so are easily found. If they bounce, it's harder for the players to detect the ball in the air.
There's a great moment in the Turkey v Sweden match when the ball deflects off a Turkish player and rolls silently across the central no-man's-land area and into the Swedish half. None of the players know where it is. The crowd "ooh" - might the Swedes score an own goal if they accidentally bash it? Despite the tactical scrubbing and intense listening, it can't be found and is declared a dead ball and given back to the Swedes. It reminds me of an incident the other week where I put down a pint of lager in my kitchen and then couldn't remember where I'd put it. I spent 10 frustrating minutes gently sweeping and combing all surfaces, worrying all the time that I might knock it over. It was frustrating and undignified and I'm glad no one was watching.
A penalty against Turkey makes for an interesting moment as all three Swedes deliberately mix up the sound by running around so their rivals don't know if the ball is likely to come from the Centre or a Winger. Cheeky, and I'm surprised it's allowed. So-called noise penalties can be awarded against a team if they roll the ball in a slow dribble that could cause it to remain silent - blind-unfriendly goals are not cricket.
In the early evening it's the turn of Team GB's women. I study tactics, as best I can. GB talk a lot between themselves to buoy spirits: "come on girls", "all of it", "wrap it up" - technical terms, I assume. The Chinese women don't speak. Is this also a tactic? If your opponents speak, they've pulled off their metaphorical invisibility cloak and this must make it easier for their rivals. With no speaking and no eye contact, the Chinese women communicate positions and tactics by gently tapping their palms on the floor. It wasn't like this at school.
Outside the Copper Box, I speak to the Linford family, who have come along after seeing goalball on TV. With its quick-fire editing, they'd expected it to be at a faster pace. The Ibbotson family, from Tunbridge Wells, say they enjoyed the matches, but "didn't understand the penalties, high ball and things like that".
The court has raised lines and the players reorientate themselves by going to the goal on the back wall to properly line themselves up in front of their opponents.
"I thought the silence was amazing and it was fascinating the way the athletes felt their way across the court," says Sue Lee, a retired teacher from Chelmsford.
Anna Sharkey
The GB women's team are more experienced than the men and, until half time, are in with a chance of winning. Anna Sharkey receives a nose injury in the second half when the ball whacks her in the face. She's given a towel which she throws back to the team bench at the side of the court. An official moves near to where the towel lands and seconds later is hit by a water bottle Anna assumes will land safely in the same place. The official makes no sound but throws her a sour look. Just as she may never know about this look, the players never fully appreciate how their throwing tactics pay off against the other side.
The women lose seven goals to one and will play Finland on Friday. I'll be attending as it seems the Copper Box might lay on a commentator so I can use that audio description gizmo and enjoy the match a bit more.
Thursday's cycling also had no audio description - a problem repeated across the Olympic Park, and during the Olympics too. My advice to blind spectators is to ask, ask and ask again. Because for blind spectators, as well as goalball athletes, it's all about the sound. If they've purchased a ticket believing they'll get a helpful commentary, they may find it would have been easier and cheaper to listen on the radio.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ouch/2012/08/blind_man_watching_goalball.html
Paralympics: 10 things you need to know
28 August 2012 Last updated at 05:35 ET
After the success of the London Olympics there's unprecedented excitement about the Paralympics.
But what are the differences between the two sets of Games?
1. No Olympic rings
Goodbye Olympic rings, hello Agitos
It may sound similar, and end in "lympic", but the Paralympics are not the Olympics. The iconic interlocking rings have no place here.
Instead there is the Agitos, the three swoops in red, green and blue that represent the Paralympic motto "spirit in motion".
[ . . . ]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19341500
Disabled people divided over Paralympics effect
By Peter White BBC Disability Affairs Correspondent
30 August 2012 Last updated at 13:33 ET
Critics describe the athletes and how they are viewed as 'inspirational porn'
The opening ceremony for the 13th Paralympic Games has successfully re-kindled the country's sense of euphoria kicked off by the Olympics.
The message from the opening was clear, from the call for intellectual curiosity from Professor Steven Hawking, to the high wire arrival in the stadium of a double-amputee serviceman, topped off by the lighting of the cauldron by the winner of Britain's first Paralympic gold medal over 50 years ago - disabled people excel in many areas, and not just sport.
The opening ceremony sent a clear message that disabled people excel in many fields
But as we settle down for 10 days of athletic excellence, and the word "inspiration" hangs heavy in the air, there is a darker side to disability in Britain, and some people are asking how this can be reconciled with the feel good factor of the Paralympics.
It has been captured in a recent report by the disability campaigning charity Scope, which says that almost half of the disabled people they surveyed feel that attitudes to them over the past year have worsened noticeably.
They cite government plans to cut welfare benefits, and the media coverage accompanying it which often allies "disabled" to "benefit scrounger".
The Paralympics is the fairy-dust we sprinkle on life as a disabled person, it shows a snapshot in time of some extraordinary people who train very hard, who are good at sport”
Baroness Grey-Thompson
They point to rises in what is being described as "hate crime", involving verbal and physical abuse, and a general sense that as people as a whole struggle in the current economic situation, empathy with disability is on the decline.
They point to rises in what is being described as "hate crime", involving verbal and physical abuse, and a general sense that as people as a whole struggle in the current economic situation, empathy with disability is on the decline.
But an overwhelming majority of the people questioned also thought that greater visibility of disabled people, in everyday life, and particularly on the media, could have a very positive effect in reversing this trend.
And Scope themselves have identified the Paralympics as just the kind of event which could achieve this.
Scope's chair, Alice Maynard, believes it is not just the deeds of the sportsmen and women which can change perception, but the disabled pundits that television and radio have assembled for their hundreds of hours of proposed coverage:
"They'll be seen as authority figures; the ones doing the explaining, teasing out the technicalities," she told me. "It is not a role in which we're used to seeing disabled people."
But changing centuries of prejudice and misunderstanding about disability is a heavy burden to place on a group of athletes who, let us face it, are doing this because, just like their Olympic counterparts, they love sport.
Stereotypes
The doubters include people like disabled actor and stand-up comedian Liz Carr, who has nothing against paralympians, but is cringing at what she thinks will be 10 days of what she, and others, call "inspirational porn".
Comedian and actress Liz Carr is concerned the Paralympics could divide disabled people
"What we mean by this is the way in which the athletes are going to be seen not as whole people, but as supermen and women, only reflected through the prism of this one aspect of their lives," she explained.
The "Supercrip" she argues, is just one more disability stereotype, which is no more real than the image of the victim, or the scrounger.
She even wonders whether the orgy of admiration could do more harm than good, dividing disabled people in the public mind between "those wonderful athletes", and those who have fallen short of the paralympian ideal.
Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, certainly would not go that far, but the winner of 11 Paralympic gold medals as one of the world's most successful wheelchair racers, has a surprising amount of sympathy for the view:
"The Paralympics is the fairy-dust we sprinkle on life as a disabled person; it shows a snapshot in time of some extraordinary people who train very hard, who are good at sport," she said. "It is great while it lasts, but probably not going to change the world, and certainly not on its own."
Media spotlight
Baroness Grey-Thompson would be the first to admit that while she can leave people far behind as she powers down the track, she still cannot get down an escalator to board an inaccessible tube train, and still needs the public's help to do what they regard as very ordinary things.
But a gradualist at heart, she does believe the Paralympics can play a part in weaning the public off the idea of disabled people as victims.
Boccia gold medallist Nigel Murray thinks the media coverage will make London a game changer
"If there is one thing the Paralympics can do it is opening people's minds to think 'actually hang on, we used to have this dreadful view of disabled people; they're work shy; they're benefits scroungers, but now we're a little bit more open'," she said.
My own experience of covering the previous four Paralympics is that interest in the games, and the personalities who emerge from them, tends to start slowly, but gradually grow to a crescendo as the event goes on.
But my experience also tells me that memory of what was learned soon fades when the Games are over.
Paralympians like Nigel Murray, who is a gold medal winner at Boccia, a form of bowls developed as a sport for more severely disabled people, believes that because the Games are in London, this time it will be different,
"In previous years gone by I think that Paralympics have come and gone and once the media attention has gone away that's it for people," he said. "But the fact that it is in London and we are the host means that there is going to be unprecedented coverage."
Many agree with him. But as one sceptic put it to me:
"It is great to hold a party, perhaps particularly when times are tough. It gives you a lift. But when you wake up the next morning, the problems are still there; you have a hangover; and you have to pay the bill."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19428263
Yea, Goodbye Olympics -- Hello Paralympics
great minds think alike .. lol .. ftfoi ..
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79133154
just imagine one wheel stuck .. lol ..
Emailed a friend who works in London and congratulated him on the job they did on the Olympics.
His reply back was just watch the job we do for the Paralympic Games.
Thanks for starting the board.
A-Z of Paralympic classification
The 2012 Paralympics in London involves 20 sports but not all disability categories can compete in each event.
Each sport has different physical demands and so has its own set of classifications.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/disability-sport/18934366
Paralympics 2012: Day-by-day guide to the key moments
2012 Paralympics
Date: Wednesday, 29 August to Sunday 9 September
Coverage: Extensive daily coverage across 5 live, 5 live sports extra and the BBC Sport website
Oscar Pistorius, Ellie Simmonds and Natalie du Toit are among the stars who will feature at the London Paralympic Games - BBC Sport picks out some of the likely highlights from 11 days of sporting action.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/disability-sport/19330470
Paralympics Opening ceremony looks to the skies
thanks to fuagf
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theguardian ~~ paralympics2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/paralympics-2012
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