A year later than planned, without spectators – but they start: the Paralympic Games in Tokyo. Almost two weeks of top quality sport. With new disciplines, 134 Germans, many of them debutants. How about the starting classes and what can the spectators expect? The big event starts on Tuesday with the opening ceremony, and on Wednesday it’s all about the medals. The most important things at a glance.
What’s new at the Paralympics?
Athletics, swimming, table tennis – of course, these sports should not be missing at the Paralympics this year either. As with the Olympic Games, there are always sports that are new to the program at the Paralympics. This time badminton and taekwondo are included for the first time. In para-badminton, wheelchair users, people of short stature and people with limited arms or legs compete in singles, doubles and mixed games. In Taekwondo there are competitions for people with impairments to the arms such as malformations or amputations.
As there were 23 sports in the program, as in the 2016 Games, others were canceled: the sailing competitions and CP soccer, i.e. soccer for athletes with infantile cerebral palsy and other neurological diseases such as stroke and traumatic brain injury, were hit who have walking difficulties and paralysis, for example.
In the 23 different sports there are a total of 540 competitions and thus 540 gold, silver and bronze medals. The many competitions come about through the different starting classes, because if you have a handicap on your arm, for reasons of fairness you cannot fight for the same medal with a person in a wheelchair (more on this see below).
Which sports are involved?
Most of the sports in the Paralympics could also be seen at the Olympic Games. Road and track cycling, athletics, canoeing, rowing, table tennis, tennis, swimming, archery, shooting, triathlon, powerlifting, horse riding, judo and fencing. Of course, with adjustments, there are the team sports wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby, sitting volleyball and blind football. There is also goalball, a traditional para sport that has been part of the Paralympics program since 1976 (men) and 1984 (women), and boccia, which has also been played on the big stage since 1984. This year a German team was able to qualify for the first time.
Goalball is the world’s most popular ball sport for people with visual impairments. The aim is to throw a 1.25 kilogram hard rubber ball with a built-in bell into the opposing goal, which the other team wants to prevent by throwing the ball in the way. Everyone wears completely opaque glasses to ensure equal opportunities.
How was that again with the starting classes?
In para-sport there is the challenge of making competitions as fair and at the same time as unpredictable and one-sided as possible. The goal cannot be for the least impaired athlete to win. On the contrary, it should be ensured that the athletic performance decides who wins the medals. Therefore, there are different starting classes depending on the sport. Basically, this is comparable to classifications according to age, gender or weight.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) divides into the following disabilities:
- Impairment of muscle strength: for example in the case of paralysis, muscle wasting, the consequences of polio and spina bifida.
- Impairment of the passive musculoskeletal system: for example, joint stiffness.
- Missing limbs: such as malformations or amputations.
- Different leg lengths
- Short stature
- Muscular hypertension, increased tension in the muscles with a reduced ability to stretch the muscle. Occurs as a result of injuries to the central nervous system, such as after a stroke or cerebralaresis.
- Ataxia, a disorder of movement coordination that occurs as a result of injuries to the central nervous system, such as multiple sclerosis, stroke, and cerebral palsy.
- Athetosis, i.e. persistent, involuntary muscle movements.
- Visual impairment
- Intellectual impairment that limits the adaptability required in everyday life.
Who is representing Team Germany?
A total of 134 athletes will represent the German colors in Tokyo. The German Disabled Sports Association could even have nominated more qualifiers, explained Karl Quade, who is traveling to the Paralympics as Chef de Mission for the 13th time. But increased international competition as well as difficult training and qualification conditions due to the corona pandemic led to a smaller team than in Rio 2016, when 148 Germans were still there.
The German team is led by wheelchair basketball player Mareike Miller and cyclist Michael Teuber – the two of them carry the German flag into the stadium at the opening ceremony. “The two are exceptional athletes,” said the President of the German Disabled Sports Association, Friedhelm Julius Beucher. Miller is the captain of her team, plus general activist, and is here for the third time. Your yield so far: One gold and one silver each. At the age of 53, Teuber is already there for the sixth time and has already been decorated five times with gold and once with silver.
Almost a third of the nominees make their debut in Tokyo, eight of them in swimming. The team also includes two Olympians: Sprinter Alexander Kosenkow is the guide for the visually impaired sprinter Katrin Müller-Rottgart, and track cyclist Robert Förstemann is on the tandem as the pilot of the visually impaired Kai Kruse.
The largest delegation is in athletics with 27 athletes. Like the cyclists, the athletes are among the most successful on the team. The most famous German comes from this sport: long jumper Markus Rehm. The world record holder, three-time Paralmypics winner, six-time world champion and flag bearer of Rio 2016 still has to digest his entry ban at the Olympic Games, but he definitely wants to defend his title in Tokyo.
There is a special constellation of sisters in judo: the twins Ramona and Carmen Brussig are among the best-known and most successful judoka. The visually impaired athletes are going to their fourth (Carmen) and fifth (Ramona) games and caused a sensation in 2012 when they won gold in their weight classes on the same day. In 2016 both achieved the silver coup.
Edina Müller is one of the favorites among canoeists. It is also the fourth Paralympics for the 38-year-old, and she won silver in a kayak in Rio. In 2008 and 2012 she was still a basketball player and part of the team that won silver (2008) and gold (2012). For the young mother, the road to Tokyo was even more rocky than for others – because the organizers did not want to acknowledge that she had to take her son, whom she was still breastfeeding, with her. But meanwhile she has arrived in Japan with Liam.
One of the debutants is Tim Focken. The marksman is the first German war disabled at the Paralympics. In October 2010, the former paratrooper caught fire with the Taliban. His life was saved, but his left upper arm has been paralyzed since then. How does he react to the attention for him? Modest: “Many see me as a kind of figurehead. I feel like one of many. I am just as little light as everyone else.”
How did the Germans fare in Rio 2016?
18 gold, 25 silver and 14 bronze medals – this is the medal haul of the German team from Rio. A total of 57 medals and sixth place in the medal table. That was okay for the German officials, after all, they did better in the medal ranking than in London in 2012 – although there were nine fewer medals. The athletes and cyclists who won eight gold medals alone were particularly pleased.
A major shortcoming in 2016: “International sport has a credibility problem like never before,” said Friedhelm Julius Beucher, President of the German Disabled Sports Association. He meant the doping problem. “There is justified mistrust of many nations that are above us in the medal table. If someone plays a foul in football, he has to leave the field. If someone plays a foul here, he is lucky if he belongs to the right association.” There had been a veritable flood of world records in Rio. It is questionable whether this has gotten better in the pandemic, where there had already been massive criticism of the lack of controls during the Olympic Games. The National Anti-Doping Agency announced for Germany that it had checked the athletes to the usual extent before the Paralympics. Since March, 140 samples have been taken from the 134 athletes and guides.
When is the first medal available?
The first medal for the country – it is a special honor for the athlete. The attention is certain, the praise, the recognition. Denise Schindler might be a name to remember. The cyclist is the first German who has a realistic chance. In the pursuit on the track over 3000 meters (Wednesday, 6:45 a.m. CEST). “I think I have a chance to win a medal in the pursuit on the track,” said the 35-year-old, who has already won two silver and one bronze, the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. But: “It wasn’t easy in the end, I had to struggle with inflammation on the residual limb in the prosthesis, which was also very challenging mentally.”
After that, who would have a chance to write himself down in the history books? The wheelchair fencers. For Maurice Schmidt and Sylvi Tauber, the category “outsider chance” applies. The 27-year-old was sixth at the 2018 European Championship, his teammate 20 years older than seventh. Schmidt says confidently: “There is no such thing as impossible.”
And what about Corona?
The pandemic is far from over. On the contrary: In Japan the state of emergency continues, recently there were around 25,000 new infections every day – more than ever before. In view of this, the measures at the Paralympics are to be tightened. There should be more tests for employees who are in close contact with the athletes. As part of the games, there were well over 100 cases of infection before the start, and some athletes also tested positive. The President of the International Paralympic Committee does not see the games as a factor in the increasing number of cases: “We do not believe that there is a causal connection between the increasing number of cases in Japan and the Paralympics.” However, everyone knows that you have to strictly adhere to the rules. He does not expect that the Paralympics will result in an additional burden for the hospitals.
The participants in the Paralympics are more at risk than others due to their previous illnesses. A survey by the “Inclusion in Sport” working group at the University of Paderborn among German cadre athletes showed that around a third belong to the risk group. Around 30 percent of them are in Tokyo for Germany. In preparation for the games, the problem of not being able to train as usual or to take part in competitions weighed more than their endangerment. Alternative training opportunities were not available to all para-athletes. Among DBS athletes, only 57 percent of those surveyed were able to take part in competitions between the start of the pandemic and March 2021. Due to the lack of training units and competitions, ten percent of athletes would have even flirted with the end of their careers, the study found.
Where can you see the whole thing?
As with the Olympic Games, no spectators are allowed in the stadiums and arenas at the Paralympics. Japan has extended the state of emergency, the corona crisis continues to spread. But there is a lot to see on television – despite the seven-hour time difference. ARD and ZDF share the reporting, the ARD kicks off with the opening ceremony on Tuesday from 12.50 p.m. and then also takes over the first day of the competition on Wednesday from 9 a.m. Then the channels alternate – the start always starts at 9 a.m. until ZDF ends the Paralympics on Sunday, September 5th with the closing ceremony at 12.55 p.m.
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