Does the Paralympics give you hope for the future?

[RTKangaMummy]

What I mean is:

When you had your baby and wondered what the future would hold for them and your family

Esp if other people say oh your baby will never walk etc.

Does the Paralympics show you what is possible?

And so therefore give you hope?

I am sorry if my question offends but I think they are all deffo brill and I love watching the Paralympics

btw it is on channel 301 during the day

[lottiejenkins]

It definetly gives me hope for my ds who i was told by special unit in hospital when he was 18 months wouldnt walk or talk....... he won his school steeplechase and nearly all his races at sports day. I sometime wish i could go in that place and say look how wrong you were! They told me my ds was autistic and missed him being deaf not once but twice!!

[Saggarmakersbottomknocker]

Just seen Ellie Simmonds win her gold medal. Bloody fab

[LollipopViolet]

I saw that on the news. Amazing, I love watching the Paralympics, because it sort of makes me think "if they can do that, I've got no excuse not to achieve my goals with only a sight problem." Inspirational.

[RTKangaMummy]

horse riding and swimming on today

[mm22bys]

I think it must be fantastic for the parents....

[2shoes]

I can't imagine dd taking part. not many sports you can do when you have so many extra movements that you can't control.
but it is brilliant to watch, just a shame it doesn't get the same coverage as the other olympics.

[Nymphadora]

Its a shame they don't show more of the field events. the bits I saw showed more severly disabled athletes completing. The people with CP throwing javelins and having to control their spasms is very impressive. Especially since I couldn't do it!

There was someone in a standing frame yesterday but they only showed a glimpse.

[LollipopViolet]

See I've noticed this, quite a lot of what they're showing is of those with less severe disabilities, which is no bad thing, but there are those who overcome severe disabilities and do very well and I wish we'd see more of it.

[amber32002]

Lee won gold again!!!!!!! (Lee Pearson, dressage - we were at the same RDA centre for a while!!)
Does it inspire me? Yup. Can't ride even a tenth as well as he can, and neither can most of the main olympic competitors.

[amber32002]

Lee won gold again!!!!!!! (Lee Pearson, dressage - we were at the same RDA centre for a while!!)
Does it inspire me? Yup. Can't ride even a tenth as well as he can, and neither can most of the main olympic competitors.

[eidsvold]

I was totally in awe watching swimmers with one arm swimming events like the individual medley. My dd2 wants to watch it all the time and strangely enough I have had no questions about the athletes having disabilities.

[mm22bys]

I'd like to see more athletes with learning disabilities too. Most of the athletes seem NT, as far as brain function goes, my perception is that alot of them seem to have physical disabilities.

Not to take away from their achievements though, it's just awesome stuff.

Wasn't there controversy at the last Games regarding the Spanish basketball, didn't they claim LD, but were practically NT?

[eidsvold]

riven - I think sometimes people in two categories or divisions swim at the same time but are rated differently - or so it seems.

I watched a fabulous game of Boccia ( lawn bowls and boucles combined) People who had assistants and used implements in their mouth or mounted on their head to push the ball along. Apparently the commentater was saying that the bowler directs the whole set up of the ramp etc direction, height and then the put the ball up and the bowler pushes it - It was truly amazing - the accuracy of their bowling achieved through very subtle differences in their push. Apparently there are 200 world ranked players in this sport.

[amber32002]

Arrghhh!!!! I've just read an article in the Church Times weekly newspaper by a guy called David Reason who says that the paralympic competitors are simply denying their disability and should give up trying to prove they're good at sport.

[TopBitch]

Has anyone ever seen goalball? I think it's such a cool game! I wish they'd show more of the paraolympics. All of those athletes deserve as much attention as their NT counterparts.

[mm22bys]

Oscar Petorius (the guy who runs on blades) I don't know how to spell him name but hopefully you know who I mean, was actually eventually approved to compete at the able-bodied games, but he missed the cut-off, AFAIK.

That guy (who wrote the article) is a twat. I bet he's never done anything near what these athletes have achieved.

[TopBitch]

I missed amber's post, does he have an email address. I'd love to tell him what i think of him. What a disabilist wanker.

[amber32002]

It doesn't give an email addy for him, but the Church Times email address is
"Features editor
Christine Miles
[email protected]"

Here's a snippet from the article in the 12 Sept edition:

"I suspect now that the Paralympics may be an elaborate way to avoid - rather than face up to the actualities of being disabled..."

"..The Paralympics' commitment to lauding individual excellence reinforces ideologies of determined self determination.They loudly cheer on grandiose missions of selftranscendence,and thereby threaten
to deafen us all to the claims of any genuine theology of salvation. The "Paralympic spirit" becomes
the easy option, when salvation surely demands that we take on the challenge of scrupulous, painful, self honesty. We are limited beings, and disability is simply part of that. The manic desire to achieve
physical supremacy is a flight from the reality of our bodies, whether we think of ourselves as disabled or not.
This attempt to overcome who you are by an act of will also amounts to a denigration of all those who choose the difficult path of facing up to the truth of their human condition."

Grandiose, manic, a flight from reality? An avoidance of admitting they're disabled when there they are, for all to see, in the paralympics, in a wheelchair? (for example). I see people doing what they enjoy - their sport. Lee Pearson, for example, enjoys representing us at this international level. Is all he's worked to achieve only a 'grandiose manic flight from reality', a reality that suggests that those with disabilities should only be a symbol of suffering of some kind or only compete against the able-bodied (and clearly some cannot)? Why on this earth can't people let others enjoy themselves against like-bodied individuals if they wish to, without criticism of them and suggestion that they are threatening their (and indeed society's) very salvation for striving to be good at something?

[RTKangaMummy]

Ellie is sooooooooooo deffo brill