Cauldron lit at inspirational games

Look up at the stars and not at your feet,says stephen hawking

Wheelchair-bound physicist Stephen Hawking challenged athletes to look to the stars on Wednesday as he helped open a record-setting Paralympics Games that will run for 11 days in near sold-out venues.

Close on the heels of the hard-act-to-follow London 2012 Olympics,thousands of dancers and stunning fireworks added to the good cheer on the opening night for an audience of 80,000. Hawking,diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21 and told in 1963 he had two years to live,began the ceremony by reading from the stage.

“Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Be curious,” Hawking said from his wheelchair,speaking through his famous computerised voice system for communication.

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The London Paralympics will host the biggest number of athletes since their official birth in 1960 at the Rome Games,with 4,280 competitors representing 164 nations compared to 400 participants from 23 countries in Rome.

South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius,who became the first double amputee to compete in the Olympics earlier this month,and was a flag-bearer for the Paralympics opening,told a news conference earlier he had seen a shift in interest towards disabled sport. The rising interest has been reflected in ticket sales,with a record 2.4 million of the available 2.5 million sold,the London Organising Committe said.The Queen declared the Games open following the mammoth procession of athletes into the Olympic Stadium. London 2012 chief Sebastian Coe said hoped the Games “would be a landmark for people with a disability everywhere.”

‘Homecoming’ Olympics

The Paralympics were conceived at the 1948 London Olympics by German neurologist Ludwig Guttmann,who had opened a spinal injuries centre at Stoke Mandeville in England for injured World War Two soldiers. On the day of the opening ceremony in 1948,Guttmann held the first archery competition for wheelchair athletes.

Those set to push their bodies to the limit in London this time round believe the ‘homecoming’ will be incredible. “I think London is going to be the tipping point. I think London will take the Paralympics to a point where it has never been before,” American single amputee sprinter Jerome Singleton,who did not know about the Paralympics until 2006,said. Compatriot and sitting volleyball player Kari Miller said the days when audiences felt sorry for Paralympians had passed. There’s less of the ‘ah aren’t they cute’ and more of the realisation our sports aren’t cute,they’re tough,she said.