2008 Paralympics underway and moving right along

Last night, I watched The Late Show with Jay Leno and his featured guest, Michael Phelps, the winner of eight gold medals at the recently concluded 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. Phelps sounded exhausted. The ratings and media frenzy about his record-setting feat at this year’s Olympics were impressive, to say the least.

If you haven’t heard, now that the Olympics are over, it is now time for the
2008 Paralympics
to take place. Actually, the
opening ceremonies
took place this past Saturday.
Patricia E. Bauer
Offers up a collection of links to different reports on these ceremonies.

With the opening pageantry complete and the games underway, I present the following round up of related Paralympics information.

This page from
The Canadian Broadcasting Center
Has several links on it for Paralympics coverage, including video and event schedules.

For informed reporting from within the disability community,
Disaboom
Has an entire
team of bloggers
reporting on the activities from Beijing.

For some local flavor, The Houston Chronicle reports on
Jordan Mouton’s quest for Judo gold.

Mouton, who has been blind since her early teens because of a genetic degenerative eye condition known as rod-cone disease, took up judo several years after she had to quit soccer as her vision declined.

Finally, for a perspective of understanding that equality is something that Paralympic athletes insist upon both on the field and off, read this New York times piece about how Tony Iniguez And his peers
fight for equal funding from the USOC.

Iniguez is one of many Paralympians who criticize the United States Olympic Committee for providing less direct financial assistance and other benefits at lower levels to Paralympic athletes than to Olympians in comparable sports. The committee awards smaller quarterly training stipends and medal bonuses to Paralympic athletes. Benefits like free health insurance, which help athletes devote more hours to training, are available to a smaller percentage of Paralympians.