Anyone who has talked and mingled with athletes with disabilities will feel how down to earth they are. Joy, anger, love, hatred… ordinary people are just like people with disabilities. After gruelling training sessions, athletes with disabilities often treat one another to a few glasses of “black iced coffee”, or, on a better day, a lively “drinking” session.
Such a celebration is surely a memorable occasion, like breaking a national record, buying a new motorbike or earning a bachelor’s degree. During these happy gatherings, athletes with disabilities never forget to ask one another about their circumstances; they show off photos from a recent holiday with their families, their children’s smiles and their parents’ joy… At those moments, athletes with disabilities seem like utterly ordinary people, like so many lives making their way through the world.
It is sporting success that has given athletes with disabilities more faith in life. The Vietnamese sports delegation for people with disabilities at the ASEAN Para Games, Asian Para Games and Paralympics has always received attention and investment commensurate with its achievements from all levels and sectors. Athletes with disabilities not only train at home but also train abroad to improve their performance and keep up with their peers.
Leaders of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the General Department of Sports, the Vietnam Olympic Committee and the Vietnam Association of Sports for People with Disabilities have long used many ways and forms to step up their attention to sports for people with disabilities. Looking more broadly at society, caring for people with disabilities and creating every condition for them to restore their impaired functions and health and to take the initiative in integrating into family and social life is a major policy and a consistent policy of the Party and the State. The establishment of the Vietnam Association of Sports for People with Disabilities in 1995 was an important event, vividly demonstrating this policy, and it also speaks to the fine tradition of “mutual love and support” and “loving others as you love yourself” of our people.
With society’s support, athletes with disabilities have gradually cast off their feelings of inferiority and confidently “stood up” to take charge of their own destiny, expressing their wishes and their thirst for victory. The prestigious medals won by Le Van Cong (weightlifting) and Vo Thanh Tung (swimming)… at the Rio 2016 Paralympics and the 2017 ASEAN Para Games in Malaysia have demonstrated the strength of Vietnamese sports for people with disabilities. Through them, friends around the world have come to understand better the material and spiritual support that the Party and the State of Viet Nam, as well as all levels, sectors and social organisations, give to athletes with disabilities in particular and people with disabilities in general.
Admiring the talent and the will and determination of Vietnamese athletes with disabilities, prestigious sports centres in Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Europe… regularly invite Vietnamese athletes with disabilities to visit and train. On such rewarding and enjoyable trips, Vietnamese athletes with disabilities have helped friends on five continents understand Viet Nam and its people better through friendly table tennis and badminton matches and competitive races in the pool… full of friendship.
Looking back at the journey of sports for people with disabilities over the past years, it is not hard to see that many athletes with disabilities have risen strongly, winning not only in competition but also over their own fate. They may lack legs, have lost a hand, or move differently from others… but thanks to sport and to the care and love of society, they have gradually integrated into everyday life and written many beautiful stories, as if from a fairy tale. The determination of athletes with disabilities to overcome hardship and rise up is also a value in life that is spreading through society.
MINH MINH – http://www.qdnd.vn