LESS than two weeks after the Olympic flame was extinguished at the Bird's Nest, Beijing will be back on Games-time footing today for the largest ever gathering of disabled athletes at the 13th Paralympics.
China promised to stage the event under the principle of "Two Games, equal splendour" and the same stunning venues will be used for 11 days of competition involving more than 4,000 athletes from nearly 150 countries in 20 sports.
"We'll have the m
ost number of athletes, the most number of sports, the most number of countries ever. It'll be the biggest ever," said International Paralympic Committee President Philip Craven.
As the vision of the Paralympic movement is not just to provide a showcase for "the pinnacle of elite performance", bringing it to the world's most populous country was always going to be "incredibly positive", Craven said.
"Part of our vision is the transformation of society and perceptions and if you think there are 83 million people in China with a perceived disability...that is quite a grouping to be liberating," he said.
"That's the portion of the population that we're targeting and no other."
Life for the physically challenged is not perfect in China.
"China is still a developing country," said Zhang Qiuping, head of the Paralympics at the Beijing organising committee (BOCOG).
"Although the barrier-free facilities in Beijing have been greatly improved for the Paralympics, currently we are not able to make it barrier-free everywhere."
Craven said major improvements had been made in Beijing, including "symbolic accessibility changes" at the Great Wall and Forbidden City.
"What the Paralympic Games does is it gives this impetus, you've got six and a half years to make a change, which has happened here, you can see it," he said.
"Then you've got the Games, which is an incredible vehicle to accelerate that change and change perceptions and then after the Games, that's when you really make progress."
Venue security chief Cao Dongxiang added:
"Our guiding principle will be to respect the independence and privacy of all disabled people."
Beijing might also host the best attended Paralympics ever. Organisers said that 72 percent of the 1.65 million tickets have been snapped up, even if 330,000 of those were handed out free to students and the disabled.
China topped the medals table at the last Games in Athens four years ago and are likely to dominate even more than they did at the Olympics.
Amputee swimmer Natalie Du Toit and "Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius, both South Africans, will receive a lot of attention despite the rival attractions of goalball, wheelchair rugby and sitting volleyball.
Du Toit and Polish table tennis player Natalia Partyka are the only two athletes to appear at both Games this year, while Pistorius's ultimately doomed attempt to qualify for Olympics on his prosthetics made headlines around the world.
The full article contains 486 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
