Truemors
The Paralympics begin in Beijing on Saturday with the opening ceremony - they run until September 17 - and this is perhaps a timely prompting to everyone here at NP - especially sports fans.
For certain it's unlikely to make nearly the headlines that the "Test Event" ( as the summer games are apparently known in Paralympic circles, according to a recent report from the BBC's Tony Garrett). It's not nearly as big to start with.
But the games surely are important, and this year marks the 13th time they've been held. The first time was in Rome, Italy back in 1960 when 400 athletes from 23 competed.
In Athens four years ago those numbers had grown to 3,806 sportsmen and women from 136 countries.
And this time around? 4,000 plus from 150 nations.
Since 1976 there has even been the winter equivalent and of course they're slated to take place in Vancouver in 2010.
Maybe as the names "Palin", "McCain", "Obama" and "Biden" don't figure too strongly, any posts there might be here on NP may get a little lost.
But there's a special Paralympics channel here and while the mainstream media probably won't be giving it that much coverage, it would seem like a great opportunity to prove that citizen journalism really can offer something that's largely missing elsewhere.
There's no live television coverage here in France, for example, just daily round-ups scheduled on the public channels.
And somehow I doubt whether networks in other countries will be devoting many minutes, let alone hours to the sporting endeavours of the athletes who will be taking part - at least not to nearly the extent they did a few weeks ago.
Auntie Beeb (bless her heart) has a special section dedicated to the games, and CNN has been running the (very) occasional story. So there's some material out there for anyone who might be interested in grappling with the highlight tool, maybe even providing a few pictures, and who knows getting a few extra points.
For my part, I tried a quick search through all sites of the major news channels, magazines and papers here in France and came up with....you've guessed it. Not a great deal.
Maybe there'll be more once the action gets underway.
What I did manage to find though was a Reuters picture (members of a martial arts school rehearsing for tomorrow) on the Paris Match web site, as their "photograph of the day."
http://www.parismatch.com/parismatch/dans-l-oeil-de-match/actualites/la-photo-du-jour/(image_node)/50051
And the same day's edition of the national daily, Le Parisien, carried some interesting stats - from a French point of view - which tell a tale in themselves.
Number of sports included in the Paralymics - 20
Number of events scheduled - 471
Number of medals won by the French at the Paralympic in Athens four years ago - 74 (18 gold, 26 silver, 30 bronze)
Number of participants at Beijing Paralympics - 4,000 +
Number of countries represented - 150
Number of French competitors - 121
Number of hours of live coverage on French television - 0
Perhaps others here on NP might have more luck and their media outlets will be providing a little more (live) coverage that they could share with the rest of us here.
So how about it? Any takers?
The picture by the way is of Natalie du Toit. She's a South African long distance swimmer who finished 16th in the women's 10km race at that "Test Event" and in so doing becoming the first female amputee swimmer ever to qualify for the Olympics.
Du Toit won gold at 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens and the Commonwealth Games, and made history last month by becoming the first disabled athlete from a country, chosen to be a flag bearer at the opening ceremony.
Oh yes, and she'll be competing in the Paralympics in Beijing.
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