Paralympic Chief Expects to "Transform Minds" at Rio 2016

(ATR) President of the International Paralympic Committee Philip Craven tells Around the Rings attitudes towards people with impairments in Brazil will continue changing after the Games.

With one week to go until the one year to go celebrations for the 2016 Paralympic games, Craven says ensuring that everything is prepared to stage the Games is only part of the focus in Rio de Janeiro.

"This is a long-term project, but I think the beginnings are there with the Games have changed the perception, and you have to change the perception of particularly the politicians before anything that happens," Craven said to ATR.

"The Paralympics coming to Brazil will bring this eye-opening experience of elite sport, transforming people’s negative minds that they have to persons with impairments.

"The Games are without in my opinion the world’s number one event for driving societal change and I think that is what we will bring to Rio and to Brazil."

Craven said a new statute that has become law in Brazil for inclusion of those with disabilities and eliminating access barriers in transportation, housing, businesses and sport is an example of the first steps of change taking place in the country.

He said that the efforts Rio is making are reminiscent of those made in Barcelona for the Paralympic Games, which made the city close to fully wheelchair accessible ten years later.

"I think that if we look at what the athletes will be using in the transport from the village to the venues, and the competition venues themselves they will be fully accessible," Craven added.

"It will take the Games happening and then legacy to see fundamental change."

In addition to reducing barriers to access for all citizens with impairments, preparations for the Games have "had some difficulties," but the IPC fully expects everything to be finished on time, and to the standards necessary to showcase the world’s best para-atheltes.

"We are reasonably happy, but there is a lot of work that needs to be done in the next 12 months to make sure we have a great Games," Craven said.

"I think we do have an advantage by following on from the Olympics, but I think that everything will be ready and I don’t have too many fears about that."

To celebrate one year to go until the Paralympics, the Rio organizing committee and the IPC are throwing a "Paralympic festival" next to the Lagoa de Freitas to showcase para-sport, invite elite athletes, and encourage public participation.

In the final year to the Games, there will be five more dedicated Paralympic test events, the most ever ahead of an Olympic games, with other events featuring both Olympic and Paralympic athletes.

With "everything coming into focus" for the final preparations, the IPC and Rio will begin selling tickets for the Games. Craven believes that having people see the high level of para-sport coming to Rio will encourage fans to purchase tickets, a tactic that worked in London.

"There was the similar event that took place in Trafalgar Square exactly one year before the opening ceremony of the Paralympics in London," Craven said.

"Ticket sales were launched a day after, and within two or three weeks, over one million tickets had been sold, which was the first time that had taken place.

"We are expecting to outsell London and Beijing. We are expecting to go ahead of the cumulative TV figures of London and Beijing, which were equal at 3.8 billion. We are expecting to crack four billion."

Written by Aaron Bauer in Rio de Janeiro

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