(ATR) Less than two weeks after the 2010 Winter Olympics closed, Vancouver returns to the global sports spotlight March 12 with the opening of the 10th Paralympic Winter Games.
Six-hundred athletes from 44 countries will compete for 333 medals in 64 events through March 21. Vancouver’s Thunderbird Arena hosts sledge hockey and the Vancouver Paralympic Centre wheelchair curling.
The Whistler Paralympic Park in the Callaghan Valley stages cross-country skiing and biathlon and alpine skiing is at Whistler Creekside.
VANOC and the International Paralympic Committee will preview the Games at a press conference Friday afternoon in Vancouver.
Canada’s sledge hockey team will be defending the gold medal it won in Turin against Norway.
Captain Jean Labonte of Gatineau, Que., who lost a leg to cancer, will carry Canada’s flag into the opening ceremony at B.C. Place Stadium. The cauldron will be lit at the climax of the ceremony, where more than 50,000 people are expected. The outdoor cauldrons at Jack Poole Plaza in Vancouver and the Whistler MedalsPlaza will be lit simultaneously.
The event will be webcast live on the IPC website, but tape-delayed until Saturday by CTV. The same domestic broadcaster for the Olympics will carry 27 hours of Games programming in English.
VANOC budgeted $4.8 million for opening and closing ceremonies. The overall Paralympic budget is $92.8 million, including $52 million from the federal and British Columbia governments.
The Winter Paralympics are a first for Canada, which held the 1976 Summer Paralympics in Toronto after the Montreal Olympics.
Unlike the Olympics, which were held amid spring-like conditions because of El Nino, the Paralympics are benefitting from fresh snow and subzero temperatures in Whistler.
Wheelchair users among the 350 athletes and officials staying at the Vancouver Olympic Village will be stuck inside their apartments because curbs were built on the balconies.
With reporting from Bob Mackin in Vancouver.
Últimas Noticias
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
