There are ramps just about everywhere you look in the Barra Olympic Park. There aren’t many ramps down at the Copacabana Beach, where I am staying, a world away from the Park.
Rio isn’t really a great city if you are disabled. The Paralympics ain’t in London no more, Toto.
Rio is a good city if you are a Paralympian. The opening ceremony gave Rio the boot up the backside it needed to kick off their interest in the Games, but the role of the Paralympics, more than the Olympics, is to leave a legacy for the disabled, to make the city an easier place for those who roll and see the world through a fog.
In London, two blind Paralympic fans who had taken a drink or three during the day, were walked to the train on the central line by a guard. As they got on to the train, he told them to ‘mind the gap’. They started giggling. Every time the train stopped at a station and the announcer said ‘mind the gap’, they were a mess of laughs.
The Paralympics is a show that aims to close that gap.
1981 was declared the year of the disabled person, something singer Ian Dury called patronising and a waste of time. He wrote ‘Spasticus Autisticus’ as a reaction against it. It was played at the opening ceremony of the Paralympics in London. The song was personal for Dury. He had contracted polio at the age of seven, and was sent to a school for the disabled where life was hard.
“I’m spasticus, I’m spasticus. I’m spasticus autisticus. I’m spasticus, I’m spasticus. I’m spasticus autisticus. I’m spasticus, I’m spasticus. I’m spasticus autisticus.”
The moto of the Rio Games is Um mundo novo - ‘a new world’. The motto of the Paralympics is ‘Spirit in Motion’. It had been ‘Mind, Body, Spirit’ until 2004. A lot changed for the Paralympics in 2004. Athens had tried to weasel out of hosting the Paralympics, claiming they could not afford them. They couldn’t afford the Olympics either. The new Paralympic symbol, the three Agitos (from the Latin ‘I Move’), was launched at the closing ceremony.
“The Paralympic Symbol also emphasises the fact that Paralympic athletes are constantly inspiring and exciting the world with their performances: always moving forward and never giving up,” reads the Paralympic literature on the re-branding. The Paralympics is more than 12 days of competition.
It’s about the future. It’s about changing perceptions.It is about more ramps and minding the gap.
“With the eyes of the world upon you, I ask you to send a message to the world through sport,” said IPC president Sir Phillip Craven on Wednesday night.
“Through your performances tell your story, a narrative of inclusion, a tale of empowerment and a legend that hope will always conquer fear.”
The Star