Sgt. Jerrod Fields is one of 227 athletes representing the United States in the 2012 Paralympic Games.
Depictions of the British Paralympic athletes on the host nation’s billboards and news sites inspired me to research members of the U.S. team. A press release found on the Team USA site says America will be sending 227 participants to compete in 21 different events from archery to wheelchair tennis. There are 133 men and 94 women on the squad from 42 different states and the District of Columbia, and 20 team members are veterans or service members.
The sections for the individual sports contain names of the competitors, historical facts about event, as well selection criteria and achievement goals for each. Sometimes they contain links to the sport’s respective professional organizations. Everything on the page, in fact, is geared really well to generating enthusiasm for inclusion and participation in sports among people with disabilities. The lead link on the page, called “Emerging Athletes,” gives a detailed account of the total process:
Athlete recruitment and identification begins at the local level through military and veteran sport camps, site coordinators, community programs, coaches, technical officials, and current athletes. Once a new Paralympic-eligible athlete is identified as having high performance potential, the Emerging Sports Manager will facilitate appropriate communication between athlete(s) and local program(s) as well as with the appropriate Paralympic sport coaches and high performance directors. This will include connections to local training resources and participation in select emerging and/or national U.S. Paralympics Team camps and competitions as well as information regarding able-bodied competitions, events and other general sport program opportunities for developing and emerging athletes.
Too bad the athlete’s names in this section aren’t linked to their individual profiles. You have to navigate to a whole other section and then scroll through an alphabetical list that doesn’t tell you which events they participate in. It does give you their hometown, however, so we know Massachusetts is well represented with nine competitors: sailing team members Tim Angle (Somerville), John Pucillo (Marlboro) and Maureen McKinnon-Tucker (Marblehead); track & field competitors Sabra Hawkes (Rockport) and Anjali Forber-Pratt (Natick); wheelchair basketball player Jaime Mazzi (Dorchester); swimmer Michael Prout (West Springfield); rower Dorian Weber (Brighton), and powerlifter Anderson Wise (Needham).
An August 24 post on the U.S. Paralympics Facebook page says the website will stream more than 500 hours of live coverage of the games. Be one of the more than 43,000 people who “Like” the page and stay up to date on what they’ll be broadcasting. Let the games begin!
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Image by familymwr (Tim Hipps.