Sorry for the day without update. The are so many things to be shared but I was getting ill and had to take measures. The only non-managed element of this event is the weather. Shame for the all weather forecasting sites including accuweather – instead of the promised 20 degrees it was 8 on 31.08 night. I was not prepared for the winter, so had to do urgently some shopping.
Of course it was compensated today. First visited event was the morning athletics session. I entered the stadium during the victory ceremony of men 200 m. run T42 won by Richard Whitehead (GB). 80 000 people were singing the GB anthem. I wished I was a British at this moment. After that there were men 1500 m run heats. The leaders took the distance for about 4 minutes. But there was an athlete from Djibouti who took the first round for 3 minutes. All of us thought that he will collapse after the first 400 m. But he continued running one more and another one….and another one. The 80 000 were standing and shouting and applauding. Some with tears in the eyes (you can imagine that I was among these ones). What a spirit, what determination and strength this one showed. He did it for more than 11 minutes and was ready to continue if the referees did not stopped him. Every single cell of his body was dedicated to this race.
After that I visited Goalball – the special Paralympic sport for blinded people. It is played in absolutely silence as the players understand the ball position by the sound of the bells in the ball. One of the players throws the ball with full power against the door of the opposite team and the three players from the defending team toss on the floor to save the ball. The match was Sweden vs Canada. I was supporting Sweden (some friends living there…). So, we won 🙂 It was very interesting that I met there the second lady from the flight to London that was traveling for the Paralympics. She is from Varna and is a referee in Goalball. So she explained me that this sport is practiced in Bulgaria and we even have a national team (still not competing in the Games) Very good news and wish them luck to qualify for Rio’2016.
After the Goalball I visited football 7a – a football version for disabled. The technical director of the federation set next to me and explained me some interesting things. Currently this game is played on the summer hockey field – artificial wet flooring but the federation is thinking to change it in order to make this sport more popular (I believe this flooring is very expensive one). The match was Ukraine vs USA. No intrigue there. The Ukrainians were playing like the national football team of Sweden vs the Bulgarian one on the EU 2004 (and some other matches also). Even the result was similar – 10:0. But I am thinking that these Ukrainians will easily defeat our “football nationals”.
The good news for Bulgaria – we have our first medal. Radoslav Zlatanov won bronze in the long jump with a personal best 6.81 m. Very well done Rado. Several record were beaten today. Among them – the superhuman Oskar Pistorious.
enspirit.me 