We returned to Tokyo. After the Olympics, the Paralympics, a no less important event, other blue medals arriving until 5 September, an event not only sporting but also social. Not surprisingly, the International Paralympic Committee has launched its manifesto for the next few years, declined on every social platform: # Wethe15 the reference hashtag, to say that disabled people are 15 percent of the world population, but do not claim for respect for their rights, they want to commit everyone, even the remaining 85 percent, to creating a better and more inclusive society. On the other hand, that 15 percent is a photograph, even a blurred one, of the world that we are: unfortunately the Afghan athletes regretted by an Italian athlete, Monica Contraffatto, senior corporal of the Italian army, unfortunately, did not arrive in Tokyo. on a mission to Kabul, he lost his right leg to a bomb; or, it happens to see on the podium, with a frequency never seen at the Olympics, Ukrainian and Belarusian athletes representing the first generation that reached sporting maturity after the Chernobyl disaster; finally, the news of the prime minister of a government to take a medal at the Paralympics is in recent days: the Romanian Novak, holder of the sport with full rights since, already a skater, then lost his right foot due to an accident, returned to compete in cycling since London 2012, immediately on the podium, in Tokyo he has also managed to best represent the government to which he belongs.
Olympic Games
Thus the victories of Jacobs and Tamberi are a help for the well-being of all
by Luca Corsolini
With the Paralympics disabled people get their lives back, sport is one of their certificates of existence, perhaps the one that best demonstrates the resistance of characters who are now no longer on the margins as before. Bebe Vio, the blue flag bearer in the last ceremony, has more than a million followers on Instagram, has spoken to Barack Obama and is now the testimonial of many companies, including Toyota which in Japan has distanced itself from the Games, however, the whole world in a commercial the story of Jessica Anastasia Long
Jessica was a Siberian child born without kneecaps, shins and the bones of both legs. From a hospital in Russia they call Mrs. Long in the United States: we have found a girl for her, but she won’t have an easy life. It doesn’t matter, says the adoptive mother, it may not be an easy life, but it will still be extraordinary. 28 Paralympic medals later, Jessica is like Bebe, like Alex Zanardi, who although absent is a looming presence on the Italian Paralympic Committee, an extraordinary representative of the disabled who rebel against those who would like to confine them to that 15 percent and take the stage. Mashed potato. in the case of Giusy Versace, winning Dancing with the Stars after losing a prosthesis during a performance. Also because today technology has modified prostheses and wheelchairs, making them no longer tools for another sport but the completion for a high sport.
Olympic Games
Usain Bolt, the tracks with the LEDs and the technology placed under the shoes
by Luca Corsolini
Otto Bock, technical sponsor of the International Paralympic Committee, a giant of German origin present all over the world, with many centers in Italy, is present in Tokyo with 100 technicians (capable of speaking more than 20 languages), and with almost 20 thousand spare parts. It is a secret of Pulcinella that many interventions are not simple repairs but supplier of new wheelchairs, new prostheses, new crutches for many athletes who then use the supports even in everyday life. At the beginning of the last century, Otto Bock stopped working on wood, he understood that to restore mobility to the mutilated it was necessary to think of unique and personalized limbs. Today, technology adds its discoveries, carbon for example, to make lighter not tools that transform Paralympic athletes into bionic athletes, but prostheses used not only in the everyday competition of a 15% of us that we are called to recognize first to respect them then. And it’s not just a question of technology. The Inail prosthesis center in Vigorso di Budrio, a few kilometers from Bologna, has become a world center of excellence also because, thinking about the rights of the disabled, we are not satisfied with technical improvements: given that Bebe Vio’s career has begun in a company called Arte Ortopedica it is easy to say that today certain prostheses are exhibited and perceived as jewels and contribute to improving the dialogue with the famous 85 percent.
This is why the Paralympics are an event of extraordinary social importance: they make everyone understand what it means to be evaluated for what one is capable of doing rather than for what one cannot do. And everyone’s medals, not only the blue ones, must not be weighed only on the basis of how many boys and girls will go or return to gyms and stadiums, but also and above all for how they will improve the lives of those who, thanks to the example of athletes, he will find the right desire and prostheses to continue his life in the best possible way.
hi-tech cycling
The technology of the Giro d’Italia: from the life-saving helmet to the biodegradable bottle
by Luca Corsolini
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