The Invictus Games Orlando 2016

bubbadog

Is anyone following the Invictus Games that started yesterday? I shocked BBC1 is the only channel showing it and the programme is a poxy 1/2hr long (except for last night that was an hour). These athletes have been to war for us and come home disabled and all the BBC can offer is half an hour!! I would rather watch the games than half the rubbish that's on of an evening. I'm following it online and watching the half an hour seeing as all they can offer. Our UK team have done amazing in the cycling winning over 1/2 the gold medals and I'm looking forward to the weight lifting and wheelchair rugby and basketball!! Come on the UK team!!

barbara12

Yes we are bubba and we have said the same..all the hardship and training these people have put in and they get half hour on the TV disgusting.. :roll:

theresak

I'm watching too - in sheer admiration.

stickywicket

At the risk of being a very politically incorrect damp squib (to mix my metaphors) they don't interest me. I find the winners of all disability sports tend to come from the countries that give them the best legs, arms and equipment of all kinds. Others may strive every bit as hard but don't stand a chance.

I also felt, after Twenty/12, there was a kind of mood afoot that suggested the rest of us disabled people could all achieve as much if we only put the effort into it. I have a friend with RA and only one leg. No-one could put more effort into life but she could have achieved far more if she only had access to a semi-decent prosthesis instead of the rubbishy one that rubs her leg into an infection as soon as she takes more than a few steps on it.

theresak

Many years ago, when I was a relatively new teacher - still wearing the rose-coloured specs - I had in my tutor group a rogue of a boy who had an artificial leg, as we called it in those days. I looked on him as a rough diamond, but most staff viewed him as a troublemaker. One day, when the school bus failed to turn up, he walked the almost 4 miles to school, arriving late, and his stump raw. I asked him why he hadn't gone back home when the bus didn't come, & he said his mum had been up most of the night with a sick baby brother so he didn't want her to have to drive him to school.

Nothing to do with Invictus, I know, but I never forgot Steven - written off by most, but with a much softer side if anyone troubled to find it. I drove him home that morning so his mum could get him sorted.

barbara12

Everyone to his or her own SW..I thought the same when Pistorius was winning all the races with his blades, but I do think there must be some disabled people that have been inspired to take up some sort of sport..its good to show that they aren't on the scrapheap

Airwave!

I can only admire the athletes who push themselves beyond their personal limits, which is where the pain comes in. I used to do the same in sport and wish them well.

My father spent 70 years with ptsd after ww2 and would not wish it on anyone and if they have a chance to recover through sport good for them.

Remember that these athletes are only the ones who got this far, thrre are others, in their resting places, those who dreamed but did not or could not do more and those who didn't even know they could dream.

Slosh

The coverage on BBC 1 did extend but as for it only being on one channel that is the norm for most sporting events as channels have to bid to buy the rights to them and in addition this is not a major international event as only two countries are involved.
To be honest I'm with Sticky in many ways, most people who need them do not benefit from state of the art prothesis or such extensive support, and more people loose limbs as a result of diabetes, whether it is caused by poor diet or not every year than in the whole of the gulf war/Afghanistan conflicts combined.
There is a new stereotype now, that links people with disabilities with sport, and in particular sporting success, my feeling is that the percentages of people participating in sport with or without disabilities is probably similar.
I think for people without disabilities the image of sports men and women with disabilities is very much an acceptable and almost "sanitised" image that is easier to accept and buy into than the day to day experience of most.

Personally my sister who ignores anything I post on Facebook linked to my arthritis /disability will cite these althletes as inspirational.

dreamdaisy

I recall one or two friends back in 2012 telling me that if I only put my mind and back into it I could do something sporty and 'improve' my arthritis. I gave up explaining that those with dwarfism, CP or other conditions rarely felt pain: I found it quicker to agree with them that I was indeed a lazy woman who enjoyed being disabled. They shut up after that.

Those who were taking part in the games were not conscripts, they joined of their own free will and took the risk. Thousands more have had disability thrust upon them and not by choice. DD

Airwave!

But these group of people have found a way round their physical and mental disbilities, using sport and for that I commend them. I doubt if any of us will be running and jumping let alone moving at normal speed but we often find ways of defining our character without being subservient to an illness.

Yes the Invictus sports group do get a lot of help, but then they gave a lot
We all have our small sucesses often away from the spotlight.

bubbadog

There where some athletes that didn't get their injuries from serving their countries who took part in this years Invictus Games but who worked in the medical sector. The one lady had lost her leg in a car accident I think and she was an anaesthetist still worked as well! Yes I also agree about disability sport for everyone that's disabled and if they want it. Some family members have said to me 'you could become a disabled athlete' to which I stared at them with daggers and said 'So which sport do you think I could do seeing as my problems are shoulders downward!!' :x

Airwave!

Bubbadog, like it, shoulders downwards is a good description of us.

One last word. Whoever said the world is a fair place to live even if you're unwell?

:cheers: