A parrot went to the Olympics

Well, wasn't the Olympics wonderful. Everything went as we expected it would. Records were broken, medals were won, and the United States of America got the most gold medals. But it's now time for another Olympics. Olympics for birds. I've been training my friend Crackers up for all the events.

Of course, there are many events to compete in. Crackers seems to struggle a little with the 5 metre running race, often mistaking it for the "walking" or "turning around and going the wrong way" race.

Then there's the Flying race. Crackers is a little better at this, but still tends to fly the wrong way most of the time.

Finally, there's Crackers favourite event. It's called "Seedsearch." Seeds are scattered in various places on the ground, and the birds have to try and find as many as they can before the other birds get to them. Crackers has much fun training for this.

Olympics for parrots begins on August 29 and continues for 11 days, going by the name of Parrotolympics.

Actually...

It appears I may have misheard the name of these Olympics. Sorry Crackers, but it's not the Parrotolympics that starts soon. It's the Paralympics. There is no Olympic Games for parrots. I'm really sorry.

(Oh no...he's started crying. He really did want to go to London to compete. Poor bird.)

Even though I got things a bit muddled there, I'll be tuning into the Paralympics anyway. The Paralympics is a separate Olympic Games held shortly after each regular Olympics, with 21 sports. The key difference between the regular Olympics and the Paralympics is that the Paralympics is for athletes with a physical disability. This means that some amazing talent is showcased in some truly unique sports.

Like Wheelchair Tennis. Which is like tennis, but is played in a Wheelchair.

Source: http://www.london2012.com/paralympics

There are some slightly more regular sports such as Archery, Cycling, Athletics, Shooting, Rowing, and Swimming. But while the sports may be regular, the athletes are far beyond regular. Izhak Mamistvalov swum in the 2004 Athens Paralympics, and because of his cerebral palsy, can only use one arm when he swims. His other arm and his legs don't work, and simply hang there producing drag while he swims. Yet he broke two Paralympic records. Truly amazing.

Whilst these normal sports are quite nice, it's the more unusual sports I find more interesting. Goalball's very interesting. It's for blind or visually impaired people (everyone wears a special mask to make them totally blind if they still have some partial sight). There's two teams. Each team has half a court, and has to throw a ball past the other team and into their goal. The ball has bells in it so they know where it is, and unlike many other sports, the crowd has to be completely silent while the game is played so the athletes can hear the bells ringing.

Source: http://www.london2012.com/paralympics

"Sitting Volleyball" is another interesting sport. It's fairly self-explanatory. It's volleyball, but rather than running around you sit down. If you're someone that's too lazy to do regular Physical Education at your school, you may wish to suggest this to your teacher...

Source: http://www.london2012.com/paralympics

Wheelchair Fencing initially appears quite interesting, but gets a little dull after a while, whilst Wheelchair Basketball is very good. But my favourite would have to be Wheelchair Rugby, the best Paralympic sport of all.

Yep, you read that right. Wheelchair Rugby.

Each team is allowed to put four players on the court at a time. Each athlete has a disability that affects their arms or legs, and is given a certain amount of "points" as to how severe their disability is. Each team can have a maximum of 8 "points" on the field at a time, to keep things fair (so a team can't just have four very mobile players). The idea is, just like regular rugby, a team has to carry the ball over their goal line. But, unlike regular rugby, each player is in a wheelchair. Players are allowed to crash their wheelchairs into other players, and try to grab the ball off them. It involves lots of falling over, and has been given the nickname "Murderball."

Source: http://www.london2012.com/paralympics

In the second image you can see my favourite player, Australia's Ryley Batt. He's possibly the best player in the whole competition, and Australia's strategy is always to simply pass the ball to him and hope he'll be able to ram his way through all the other players to score a goal. You can see the highlights from the 2008 Beijing final here, where the United States beat Australia to get the Gold Medal, whilst Australia won Silver.

Unlike the actual Olympics, there's a lot less Copyright and Broadcast rights around the Paralympics, which means that you can watch the games live on the official Paralympics Youtube channel here. (For readers in the Philippines, my research suggests that this is the only way to watch it, as it doesn't appear to be televised. In Australia, the ABC will be showing it live! Without annoying ad breaks in the middle of sports! Hooray for the ABC!)

Even though everybody is confident that the United States will win the most Gold medals, it's still worth having a look at. I personally follow it more actively than the regular Olympics. The only person not happy about it is Crackers, who is still imagining himself winning a Gold Medal at the Parrotolympics...