Disabled Iraqi athletes compete
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — We’re standing on Baghdad University’s running track in the midst of a sandstorm. The sky is yellow, and a gritty cloud of dust whips our faces. Two large explosions rumble from downtown. No one here pays much attention.
These 250 athletes from 14 Iraqi disabled sports clubs aren’t fazed by much. Many of them were maimed by this war, missing arms, legs, blinded and deafened. Few people, from what I can see, have artificial limbs or prosthetic devices. A man with one leg using a simple wood cane jogs by me at a blistering pace.
We’re here for the opening of a three-day national competition organized by the Iraqi National Paralympic Committee. As the announcer calls out to various teams, athletes and their families gather under two large windswept tents.
There are no crates of bottled water, no power bars, no competition T-shirts . This is sports, Iraqi-style. Even to get here, people have to literally dodge bullets and terrorist mortars.
Under the tent I meet 26-year-old Sabrina Wardi. Like almost all the women here, she is wearing a scarf to cover her hair Iraqi-style, a baseball cap topping it off. Watch Wardi train and describe what happened
I used to be an amateur athlete before I had my accident, she tells me. The accident, I learn, was a car bomb. My left leg was amputated, Sabrina says, I had fractures in my right leg and shrapnel in my arm and jaw.
Sabrina is wearing a running suit with the logo of a local sports club for the disabled. After the accident she thought she would never do sports again, but a friend encouraged her to join the club. Now Sabrina is throwing a shot put, discus and javelin.
But Sabrina has the same problem almost all of these Iraqi athletes have: traveling to the club where she trains can, in itself, be an obstacle course; there’s no special transportation for the disabled, potholed streets, blasted sidewalks, elevators that don’t work, sporadic electricity and other realities of today’s Baghdad.
Then there’s the danger: I’m afraid to go out alone because of the security situation, she tells me. My mother needs to go everywhere with me.
At the other end of the tent the organizers of today’s competition are interviewing a young boy in blue running shorts, black high socks and a ton of energy. It’s 11-year old Hussein Abdul Zahara and he’s jogging in place as his coach gives him some pointers for an upcoming race.
Hussein tells me he has been running since he was 6. Last year he was shot in the head, as he stood on a street corner. He lost his sight.
He says he’s not upset and feels pretty comfortable but deep down inside, I’m always sad.
At the starting block, Hussein’s coach ties an old handkerchief to Hussein’s hand, grabs hold and guides him down the track.
No one knows precisely how many Iraqis were crippled or maimed in this war. The head of the Paralympics Committee, Fakhir Ali Al-Jamaly, estimates there are some 3 million disabled people throughout this country of 27 million.
We have no training center, no cars for people with wheelchairs, he tells me. He’s been lobbying the Iraqi government for help.
A man with no legs but whose shoulders could lift a mountain swings himself into a chair and warms up for the shotput. On the track, four men are at the starting block for a race. The referee claps his hands … and they’re off.
One man moves out in front. He has only one arm. I ask Mr. Al-Jamaly what he thinks of when he looks at all the disabled athletes gathered here together in the midst of a sandstorm.
It’s a normal and happy thing, especially since we’re in the midst of an abnormal situation, he says. It’s something exceptional for them and for their families.
found here.
