Tomorrow
marks the opening ceremonies of the Winter Paralympic Games in Sochi, Russia.
With 6 Winter sports - biathlon, snowboarding, curling, sledge hockey, alpine,
and cross-country skiing - this is a beautiful thing. Sir Ludwig Guttman
is credited with starting the Paralympic movement because as a neurologist who
founded the Stoke Mandeville Hospital in the United Kingdom to deal with
injured World War 2 soldiers, he also believed in sport’s potential to build
both physical strength and self-respect. He organized the first Stoke
Mandeville Games in 1948, which eventually grew into the Paralympics that are
currently held “parallel” to the Olympic Summer and Winter Games every two
years.
Full
disclosure: I am a former Paralympian and therefore have a vested interest in
the games. As a person with a spinal cord injury who had no role models growing
up and who lived without the expectations that I would ever live a quality
life, I had no imagination that I would ever be involved in any kind of sport.
My Dad, however, had a bigger imagination, and it was because of him that I one
day found myself at a competition with other wheelchair athletes. One thing led
to another and I made the national team when I was 17. Meeting my team members
and the national coach, together with getting to know people from other
countries who also had disabilities, completely and beautifully transformed me,
how I saw my disability, and how I viewed all disabilities. Wheelchair sport
then coloured everything in my life, from my education to the decision to
become a parent. Simply put, I owe a lot to sport.
While human excellence is found in many other areas
of this beautiful life, for the next two weeks I will be celebrating sport and
the Paralympic Games. I will celebrate spirit, excellence, perseverance,
strength, hard work, and hope.
I
hope you will join me.
Wishing
you beauty,
hk
