Ria Beri ‘27
EE Staff Writer
The Paris Olympic Games came to a successful conclusion last Sunday, August 11. Although many mistake this to be the end of the Olympics as a whole, there is in fact another event that is yet to take place: the Paralympic Games.
The Paralympic Games, also known as the Paralympics or the Games of Paralympiad, are the Olympics designed exclusively for athletes with physical disabilities. The summer games feature 22 modified sports, including blind football, wheelchair basketball, and sitting volleyball. This year’s Paralympics will be held in Paris, France from Wednesday, August 28 to Sunday, September 8.
The Paralympics originated in 1948 at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Great Britain when neurologist Dr. Ludwig Guttmann organized a sports contest for his wheelchair user, World War II veteran patients. The competition was an instant hit, and it was hosted again in 1952 under the name the Stoke Mandeville Games. By 1960, the games became a formal event and grew to include 400 athletes from 23 countries, and in 1980, they were officially termed the Paralympic Games.
Although the initial games solely hosted wheelchair sports events, the modern Paralympics have grown to include and support athletes of varying disabilities, such as vision impairment, cerebral palsy, and limb amputations. One shining example of this is swimmer Trischa Zorn-Hudson.
Zorn, the most decorated Paralympian of all time, was born blind in both eyes. Nevertheless, she trained relentlessly from age 8 and earned an NCAA Division I scholarship to the University of Nebraska, where she swam alongside her sighted teammates. Zorn made her first professional debut at the 1980 Arnhem Paralympics, and she went on to win 55 medals and break 8 world records throughout her career in Paralympic swimming. Zorn retired in 2004 after 24 years of professional swimming.
While many Paralympians have had their impairments since birth, there are also a great deal of them who have obtained their conditions through infections, strokes, and attacks. One such case is Ali Truwit, a native of Darien, Connecticut, who was an able-bodied swimmer for Yale University from 2019 to 2023. Just two days after her graduation, Truwit was snorkeling in the Caribbean Sea when a shark suddenly came and bit off her left foot. In spite of everything, she returned to the pool just a month later and resumed training, this time with a prosthetic leg. The 2024 Paris Paralympics will be her first-ever Paralympic Games.
“Some things I’ve lost, and I’ll never get them back. And that’s just my reality,” acknowledged Truwit in an interview. “But the things that I can get back, I’m going to fight for tooth and nail.”
While swimming is a popular Paralympic sport, it certainly is not the only one. Sports Foundation reports that wheelchair basketball is the most popular sport in the Paralympics, with over 250 female and male qualifiers this year. Also on the podium are para athletics and para swimming, followed by wheelchair tennis and sitting volleyball.
The beauty of the Paralympics is how the games provide paraplegic athletes a safe and fair opportunity to pursue the sport that they are in love with regardless of their life experiences and physical condition. The Paralympic Games are composed of a resilient group of competitors that work just as hard as the next person and foster a truly inclusive environment built on the core values of courage, determination, inspiration, and equality. Each and every one of these athletes deserves commendation for their exceptional work and serves as a motivating force to hard-workers everywhere.
To support these amazing athletes, consider watching the Paralympic Games. Peacock will broadcast the entirety of the games while NBC, USA Network, and CNBC will stream a fair few events.