Paralympic Training Center

Abstract

The word Paralympics combines the Latin word para which means “next to”, with the word Olympics because the games happen alongside the summer and winter Olympics. In Paralympics, athletes compete in wheelchairs, with prosthetic limbs, and without senses such as hearing or sight. A Paralympic training Centre can give the physically challenged athletes a boost in their training and pave the way to raise awareness of disabilities and help to create a more supportive and better equipped world for them. Their disabilities such as impaired muscle power, impaired passive range of movements, limb deficiency, leg length difference, short stature, hypertonia, vision impairment and intellectual impairment should be taken into account while designing the training Centre. Many disabled people who dream to be a Paralympian find it hard to do so because of various reasons such as discrimination and tough economic culture. It is our duty to not only give them a chance to protect their rights but also create a change in the way the society look at them by catching their attention and changing people’s perceptions of what ”disability” means and what extraordinary abilities the so-called disabled actually possess. The purpose of a Paralympic Training Centre is to give them an opportunity to build them up and make them push themselves to the highest possible limits and to be the pride of their family and the country. Social infrastructure and unified approaches and standards for an accessible environment can rehabilitate the disabled since the current scenario is not disabled friendly. In India, athletes are mainly trained under government aided sports authority called Paralympic Committee of India and other foundations like SAI, Go Sports, which has a lot of limitations in its infrastructure to support them especially in providing them with the best equipments for their training as there are limitations to funds. By creating a Centre equivalent to international standards creates an opportunity to gain attention and educational support by collaborating with international sports associations. This will also help in improving India's image on the International Sports front, which is currently in desperate need of a boost. It could also involve organizing assistance for disabled, training sports professionals to work with the disabled and creating jobs. Designing a centre exclusively for the parathletes is a huge challenge considering the factors involved like food, accommodation, areas for both outdoor and indoor sports, theory classrooms and medical centre but if done right in the most economical and feasible way, this project could turn out to be an immense success.