Sink or Swim

Paralympics – Swimming

I find that Swimming is one of those Sports that you are either really good at it, or really terrible at it.
Unfortunately, for me, I am the latter. I start off with about three good strokes before I descend into a pathetic doggy paddle, and are left to be hooked out by the pool assistant with the giant metal pole.

Photo from Channel 4 - Paralympics

Perhaps this is why I find the Swimming events one of the most fascinating and inspiring sports of the Paralympic Games.

It is one of the biggest in terms of popularity, events and competitors. 

The classifications range from
- S1 to S10 for athletes with physical impairments
- S11 to S13 for visually impaired athletes
- S14 is for athletes with a learning disability, which is new the London2012 Olympics.

London2012 will see 10 whole days of swimming events at the Aquatics Centre.
With such a large volume of different races, it’s no wonder that events will be going on every day, for the duration of the games.

Butterfly, Breaststroke, Backstroke, Freestyle, Medleys, Relays,  50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, Men’s and Women’s…
That’s before we’ve even got to the classifications.

There will be a staggering 148 medal events for this year’s Paralympics. That’s 600 swimmers, desperate to bring home gold for their country!

At the last Olympics in Beijing, Team GB won 41 medals as well as setting several world records! Great Britain came 4^th overall in the Swimming with 11 golds, 12 silvers and 18 bronze medals.

Photo from www.swimming,org

GB have a wide range of different athletes of different abilities, ages and experience.
The last Paralympic Games saw Ellie Simmonds win 2 Gold medals in the S6 category making her the youngest Briton to win an Olympic or Paralympic medal at the age of 13 years old!

Jim 'the swim’ Anderson OBE  has competed at every Paralympic Games since Barcelona 1992, making London his sixth Games and him one of the more experienced members of the British team. 

21 of our fabulous 44 Swimmers will be competing for the first time in the Paralympics.
Many of them will be keeping us up to date with proceedings via twitter!

Some will be using assistive technology such as screen readers, zoom text, voice activated software and other adapted tech.

For more info on swimming at the paralympics, please visit:

http://www.london2012.com/paralympics/swimming/about/

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