This year is the first time I’ve watched the Olympic games, and I absolutely loved watching judo. Imagine my thrill when I found out judo will also be featured in the Paralympics!
Anybody else planning to watch the Paralympics? If so, what sport? I am a bit curious about “blind football” and “wheelchair basketball” (as titled in my language), so I might give those a try as well.
I’m all Olympiced out. I feel guilty for not watching every time, but I would genuinely watch it if it was on the year after.
A 4 year cycle of Olympic, paralympics, winter, winter para would be ideal for me.
There are also the Special Olympics and Deaflympics, which have their own cycle. I didn’t check, but there is probably something every year already.
I didn’t think Special Olympics was an acceptable phrase. I also thought deaf people compete in the paralympic games.
I could do with a better understanding, but as I mentioned above I’m all Olympiced out and I’m not really interested enough to read up. It might seem harsh, but I don’t care enough and don’t think I should feel guilty about it.
(I’m not saying you suggest I should feel bad by the way)
Why don’t they merge the Paralympics and Special/Deaflympics?
My thoughts as a layman:
They probably have very different rulesets. Deaflympics “only” has to account for the fact that the athletes cannot hear sounds like speaker announcements, starting pistols etc., whereas Paralympic athletes have physical disabilities that directly influence their performance.