These days the world mourns the loss of Gino Strada, a person who has done so much for mankind. There are many words of the founder of Emergency that will remain etched in our memory, but there is a phrase that Gino Strada said and that for me is invaluable: “The rights of men must belong to all men, proper to all, otherwise call them privileges”.
People with disabilities have been fighting for years to have their rights recognized, and there are many achievements that we have managed to achieve.
There is certainly one of the most significant the right to sport.
On August 24 they will start the Tokyo Paralympics and the Italian delegation will present itself with the highest number of athletes ever, even with a percentage of women higher than that of men. The team will be captained by Baby saw (fencing) e Federico Morlacchi (I swim).
Anyone who knows me knows, when I play Trivial Pursuit the questions about sport are the ones that put me most in crisis, it is not a subject in which I am very knowledgeable, but the Paralympics have always fascinated me. When I watch the Paralympic athletes go by I can’t help but feel a certain emotion thinking about all the goals achieved in accessing sport.
Few people know that if we have the Paralympics today we owe it to the German naturalized British neurosurgeon Ludwig Guttmann, who organized a sports competition in 1948 for war veterans. These races were named after the town that hosted them annually, Stoke Mandeville.
The Stoke Mandeville games were so successful that they became an international sporting event, beginning to enjoy great fame. However, we will have to wait more than ten years to see the Games hosted in a city other than Stoke Mandeville.
In 1960, what are still considered the first Paralympic games took place in Rome. That was also the first year that the Olympics and Paralympics were held in the same city and the Paralympic athletes shared the same facilities as the Olympians. Since then it was decided that the Paralympics would also have a four-year cadence, and in 1988 an agreement was signed to ensure that both events would always take place in the same city.
Despite the numerous achievements, however, I must admit that I regret to note that the Paralympics never receive the same resonance as the Olympics: the sports channels mention them little, showing them as a minor event, the media presence of the Paralympic athletes involves the most famous and it seems almost a concession that is made to us. The subtext that emerges is that Paralympic athletes obviously fail to warm the hearts of sports fans as much as Olympic athletes. Confirming this feeling is the fact that the Olympics and Paralympics are two very distinct events, when in my opinion the Paralympics should be the natural continuation of the Olympics. To prove this there is an opening and a closing ceremony for both. In this way, we touch the aftermath, the leftovers, the sops.
For this reason I hope that already this year we can start with a greater media interest and an unprecedented cheering for the Paralympic athletes, and then get to a not too distant future in which we will have a unique event, as unique are the sporting qualities of the Olympic and Paralympic athletes.
Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.
