There are still five months before the next Paralympic flame is lit. After the 2008 Summer Games, the Olympic Games and Paralympics will again take place in Beijing next year. The first foretaste of the 2022 Winter Games was already there. The Chinese government had come up with something rather unconventional for this. A robot from the Chinese Space Agency (CNSA) still had time for a selfie after landing on Mars. In May of this year, the earth reached the image of the robot, called “Zhurong”. The outlines of the mascots for the 2022 Winter Games can be seen in the background. Zhunrong is supposed to explore the “Utopia Planitia” area on the red planet.
In Tokyo, too, the athletes from China were, as usual and as expected, in first place on the medal table from the first day of the competition. Since the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, China has always been at the top of this overall ranking at summer games and has won by far the most medals with their team. In winter sports, however, the country was never able to build on these successes – China is not known for the strength of its athletes in the snow. After the last Winter Paralympics in South Korea, which were quite unsuccessful with a medal, the Chinese government is now following the turnaround for these sports for next March. As if the team, like the Martian robot, were entering new, utopian territory: the home team should be represented in large numbers at home games in all six sports and should play at the forefront.
The boom in Chinese para-sport
As the host country in particular, the organizers put themselves under a certain amount of pressure. In order to later play a visible role in the medal table, the number of Chinese athletes in winter sports was increased from around 50 to over 1000 over a short period of time. This is recorded by the Chinese “Disabled Persons Fedaration” (CDPF). To this end, the institution introduced a comprehensive system in China that recruits promising athletes for performance training in a selection process.
The Chinese government made this increase in athletes possible through various grants that had already profoundly professionalized summer sports in the course of the first Paralympics in Beijing in 2008. Such a development is now also gaining ground in Chinese winter sports.
To guarantee success, some experienced trainers from abroad were hired to bring relevant specialist knowledge to the teams. One of them is Dario Capelli, who had already prepared the Italian alpine skiing team for Turin 2006.
When the Italian arrived in China in 2018, they said to him: “This is your team – and we need the gold medal!” He recalls. He sometimes met athletes with disabilities who had never been on skis before and who sometimes suffered from a fear of heights. They subordinate everything to the goal of the government. “We stay together all year round – 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Capelli reports in an interview with the IPC Association of Para-Alpine Skiing. At the beginning of the last World Cup season, the first success came with 16 medals. This performance development over the past four years gives the Chinese team respect from international competition.
With the promotion of para-sports, one hopes to encourage other people with disabilities to participate in competitive sports, reports the President of the CDPF, Lu Yong. But you also want to see results and for that you train all the harder. International opponents ask themselves: What is behind this rapid development of Chinese athletes? The Global Times reports of military-like conditions in the training camps that only a few have seen to this day.
It remains open what possibly negative aftertaste the success curve in Chinese winter sports has. What is certain, however, is that the little Martian robot is turning its back on past “utopias” with its selfie and sending sporty greetings to earth.
Emojis are supposed to represent para-sport
For Paris it will be the first Paralympics in 2024. There have been no Olympic Games in the French capital for a long time – it will be exactly 100 years ago in 2024. The Paralympics, on the other hand, will be held in France for the first time. From August 28 to September 8, 2024, three years after the Games in Tokyo, top athletes * will be able to compete in the Paralympic summer sports in Paris.
With the support of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the French Committee (CNPSF) and with the help of several French athletes, the organizers of the games have called for more publicity for para-sport in digital communication. On August 31, 2021, the organizers officially presented their emoji concept. A prosthetic runner or an arm-amputated swimmer should become part of the emoji gallery. With the partner for 2024, “cisco-System”, an American company, they would generally like to do more for the digital infrastructure and create equal opportunities for everyone.
Underground project failed
The French government is using the upcoming games as an opportunity to further expand its metro network and extend it into the notorious “banlieues” of the capital. This is the name given to the outer suburbs of Paris, which are known for their lack of infrastructure. Saint-Denis is one of them. The Olympic Village will be built here with the accommodations of the participating athletes. The project is apparently already doomed to failure after the operator of the planned metro expansion of Grand-Paris-Express announced in July this year that it is not expected to be completed by 2024. The construction work would be postponed for two years.
The motto of the Paralympics in Paris is “Venez partager” – which means something like “made to share.” The organizers of the CNPSF want, above all, social games. Primarily, the Paralympic prelude in France should embody inclusive progress. The Austrian Paralympic Committee (OEPC) reports that a “revolutionary” logo was therefore chosen to represent the games. In 2024, the individual logo of the Games will be identical to that of the Olympic Games for the first time. A gold medal can be seen on it, which should reflect the ambition of all participants. A white flame can be seen in the middle. This unites the Olympic and Paralympic spirit of movement. For the fusion of both symbols, the agency commissioned by the Royalties Ecobrandings Paris has come up with something special to exude French flair. In combination, the medal and the flame merge into an image of Marianne. She is the national figure of the French.
The organizers of the IOC and IPC games presented the logo in 2019 at 8:24 p.m. Paris time: “These symbols show a face that embodies our ambition to put people at the center of the games,” said Chef de Mission des French Paralympic Committee, Tony Estanguet.
This text is part of this year’s Paralympics Newspaper. You can find all the texts in our digital series here. You can read all current decisions and developments in our Paralympics blog.
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