Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 19 - 25 October 2000 Issue No. 504
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Notes on the parallel Games

-- The word 'Paralympic' comes from parallel, not paraplegic. It is meant to signify that the Games are parallel with the Olympics.

-- The Paralympic Games have never been held in the Southern Hemisphere before.

-- The Olympic record for the men's 100 metres is 9.84 seconds set by Canadian Donovan Bailey in 1996. The Paralympic record is 10.72 seconds by arm amputee Ajibola Adeoye of Nigeria.

-- The Paralympic gold, silver and bronze medals are all the same size -- 70 millimetres in diametre and five millimetres thick -- making them slightly bigger than the Olympic medal (68mm x 5mm).

-- Each medal weighs 220 grammes, or 10 grammes heavier than an Olympic medal.

-- There are 561 gold medal events at the Paralympic Games compared with 300 in the Olympics.

-- There are 18 Paralympic sports compared with 28 Olympic sports.

-- There are more medals but less sports at the Paralympics because the Games feature athletes from five disability categories -- amputee, intellectual disability, vision-impaired and wheelchair. There is also "les autres," French for "the others." It groups together athletes with a mobility problem that does not fit into one of the five categories.

-- Boccia goalball (played indoors by vision-impaired athletes only), powerlifting (bench-pressing) and wheelchair rugby are played in the Paralympics but not the Olympics.

-- There will be no demonstration sports in the Sydney Paralympics.

-- One hundred and twenty-five countries entered the Sydney Paralympics, compared with 103 in Atlanta, 83 in Barcelona and 62 in Seoul.

-- The US finished atop the medal's table in Atlanta with 46 gold medals, followed by Australia with 42.

 

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