I’ll catch the highlights on YouTube, same as I am doing for the Oympics. I’m sure that there will be some impressive displays of athelitic skill that will make me go wow.
Don’t the para-athletes use Olympic Village for housing? They probably couldn’t host both the regular and Paralympics at the same time and may need a minimal amount of time between the two events to set things up again,
Unlike some of you, I’m a huge fan of the Olympics and watch many hours of it every time. Nevertheless I probably won’t watch the Paralympics. Not sure why but I’m just not as interested.
I often turn the tv on and let my attention come and go from the Olympics and Paralympics. I wouldn’t say I follow any particular sport but I can appreciate watching it and that holds true for both events.
I’ll certainly watch some.
I went to the Olympic stadium to watch an athletics session (including a certain Oscar Pistorius) at the London Paralympics in 2012 and thoroughly enjoyed it. The atmosphere was superb and the stadium was packed. So I will definitely be catching some of it this time on TV and I hope the French public takes to it like the British did.
I had never been to a top class athletics meeting before so it was a real eye opener as to just how fast the athletes really are when you see them in person. It really doesn’t come across too well on the TV since the camera is constantly panning or tracking with them down the track so the relative speed to the ground isn’t easy to appreciate. Just to add, completely irrelevantly to this discussion, the icing on the cake was the (at the time) chancellor George Osbourne being roundly booed when presenting some medals.
Same here.
Also, to be fair, I haven’t paid much attention to the current Olympics either beyond checking a medal count occasionally and seeing a few stories about it.
Probably a couple events but probably not a lot.
I tend to catch a lot of the Olympics through the first week and then it ramps down hard throughout the 2nd week as fatigue sets in. I usually need a bit of a break at that point.
Interesting, I’m the opposite, mainly due to the athletics always being in the second week.
Sure, why not. Anything that keeps 24-7 football and the ungodly mess NASCAR has turned into off the tube for a few more weeks is fine by me.
There’s a certain appeal to watching athletes who haven’t been able to reach their physical potential through no fault of their own but are still training hard and giving their all. As someone whose athletic ability was pretty meager even at my best (there’s a reason the only trophy I ever got was in soccer), I can relate to a high jumper with one leg or a legally blind sprinter much more than Noah Lyles. The real beauty of it is that there’s never any controversy, probably because there’s so much variance in these jocks’ abilities (as with everything else about them) that there’s no doubt as to who’s the best, or second or third best.
Hey, it’s once every four years. If something extraordinary happens, I want to be there for it.
I probably won’t. Previous coverage has been basically compassion porn, and was insulting to the participants.
I’ll probably watch bits and pieces of it - mainly the track & field (it’s not a Paralympics until the PA system has a loud “SSSHHHHHH!”, usually at the start of the blind 4x100m; the stadium needs to be quiet until every team has made its final baton pass).
I was reminded of this thread.
The article is gone but this is one of the photos.
The article was actually from three years before the London Olympics.
The little girl is Ellie Challis who at the time was the youngest person in the world to receive running blades. She lost both her feet and hands to meningitis.
I got curious about what she did in the years after.
Turns out she’s been a busy young lady.
Silver in the 50m backstroke 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
3 Gold, 5 Silver and 2 Bronze in the World Championships 2019, 2022, 2023 and she’s on the team for the 2024 Paralympics.
Tokyo Paralympians Ellie Challis, Louise Fiddes, Grace Harvey, Suzanna Hext, Louis Lawlor and Toni Shaw complete the roster of athletes with prior Games experience – with Challis, Fiddes, Harvey and Shaw all having reached the podium three years ago at the rescheduled Tokyo 2020 Games, which yielded a phenomenal 26 medals for ParalympicsGB in the pool.
I was thinking something similar to this a few days ago. I think that they should be completely integrated and blended to the greatest extent possible. The current configuration, IMO, reinforces the different or “special” nature of the events.
Notwithstanding all that, I’m not much of an Olympics watcher anyway.
Remember the Humboldt Broncos bus crash in 2018?
The goalie from the team will be competing in Paris in the rowing competition. He’s been practising on the Mighty Wascana, close to Chez Pipers.
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