Paralympic Winter Games Get Underway

 

by James Skitt - 12.03.10

The Xth Paralympic Winter Games get underway in Vancouver today (Friday), with approximately 600 athletes from 45 countries set to compete across five sports over the next 10 days of competition.

ParalympicsGB has selected twelve athletes for the Games, five of whom will form the wheelchair curling squad, along with six sit-skiers and one visually impaired skier. Whilst other sports at the Games include Biathlon, Cross Country Skiing and Ice Sledge Hockey.

UK Sport, which has invested £650,000 in Paralympic Winter sport since the last games in Turin, yesterday announced a medal target of one at the Games, equaling the total brought home four years ago when the British Wheelchair Curling team won Silver.

UK Sport’s Chief Executive John Steele commented: “The Olympic Games in Vancouver were exciting and dramatic and I am sure the Paralympic Games will be full of some more fantastic moments. I know that every event will be hugely competitive but I am confident that our sports and athletes have the ability to succeed”.

Paul Davies, National Lead for Paralympic Sports Science & Sports Medicine at the English Institute of Sport (EIS), said: “If the Vancouver Olympics are anything to go by, Vancouver Paralympics will be an excellent spectacle. Great Britian has some real medal potential, so don’t be surprised to see both the Apline and the Curling teams putting themselves well into medal contention”

You can view the Games schedule here, whilst you can keep up to date with all the news and results from Vancouver via the ParalympicsGB website here

Live coverage of the Games is available at www.paralympicsport.tv

Photography © Getty Images