Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Huzzah for our Paralympians!
Let's give a standing ovation to our NZ Paralympics team. 6 gold and 3 bronze! That is one outstanding achievement, matching their success at Sydney four years ago, when they had a larger team. These men and women are amazing, and their courage in overcoming huge handicaps is exemplary. To me they are the real role models in sport.
The only cloud was the pathetic coverage given to the event by TV1. One hour a day is shameful. It was almost worse than no coverage at all, because it was effectively saying that these people are not real athletes.
Well, here's news for you, TV1. I would rather have watched one event of the Paralympics than the whole of that other event that preceded it. Apart from the NZ team performance, the image that stuck most in my mind was the Russian swimmer with no arms who won the backstroke. Perhaps if we want more golds at the Olympics, we should chop the legs off all our NZ athletes.
The NZ Paralympics web site is here.
Let's give a standing ovation to our NZ Paralympics team. 6 gold and 3 bronze! That is one outstanding achievement, matching their success at Sydney four years ago, when they had a larger team. These men and women are amazing, and their courage in overcoming huge handicaps is exemplary. To me they are the real role models in sport.
The only cloud was the pathetic coverage given to the event by TV1. One hour a day is shameful. It was almost worse than no coverage at all, because it was effectively saying that these people are not real athletes.
Well, here's news for you, TV1. I would rather have watched one event of the Paralympics than the whole of that other event that preceded it. Apart from the NZ team performance, the image that stuck most in my mind was the Russian swimmer with no arms who won the backstroke. Perhaps if we want more golds at the Olympics, we should chop the legs off all our NZ athletes.
The NZ Paralympics web site is here.
