I don’t find out about you, however watching the 2024 Olympics closing ceremony felt like waking up from a two-week-long trance throughout which I turned a boxing buff, canoeing connoisseur, and Ilona Maher superfan. I laughed, I cried, after which cried some extra as I watched so many goals come true for tons of large athletes. Fortunately, we get to expertise 12 extra days of those particular moments when the 4,400 Paralympic athletes take the stage—however that’s not taking place for one more couple of weeks. Why? It turns on the market are a number of causes for the delay between the Olympic and Paralympic video games, although they occur in precisely the identical place.
Traditionally, the two-week hole ensured that staff had time to make the Village and competitors areas extra accessible for the hundreds of athletes (and their help canines!), who all have various disabilities, Craig Spence, chief model and communications officer of the Worldwide Paralympic Committee, tells SELF. However because of progress in incapacity consciousness and inclusion, every thing is “created with accessibility in thoughts for each the Olympic and Paralympic Video games, so all of the ramps and tactile flooring are there from the beginning.” Actually, nothing must be added or modified to make the house extra inclusive.
Nonetheless, lots of the competitors venues do must be reconfigured for Paralympic-specific sports activities, Spence says. For instance, some goalball video games—a sport for visually impaired gamers that includes throwing a ball with bells right into a cage—will probably be held in the identical place the place among the Olympic handball courts had been, that are about double the dimensions. Equally, volleyball courts are bigger than these for sitting volleyball, which is sort of the identical sport however performed with a decrease web whereas seated on the ground. (Though this yr, these sports activities are held in numerous areas, so it’s a non-issue.)
Plus the world that held the Olympic skateboard, breaking, and 3×3 basketball occasions needs to be fully dismantled, eliminated, and rebuilt to host the Paralympic opening ceremony on August 28, Spence says. And the well-known Olympic Rings must be faraway from the entire competitors venues and changed with the Paralympic Agitos, which implies “I transfer” in Latin and is made up of three waves.
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