Ireland’s Paralympic team returns home on Monday after another remarkable games in Paris. The headline is, of course, the six medals. but the team has delivered much more.
Ireland’s four-time Paralympian, Katie-George Dunlevy, spoke about how, as a child with a visual impairment, she had nobody to look up to, or to inspire her. Her extraordinary achievements in the velodrome and on the road were not only cheered by the nation but had a deeper importance. As Dunlevy herself put it: " Hopefully we’re inspiring the next generation in whatever they do, sport or anything else.”
This time around Ireland’s medallists were all visually impaired women. Dunlevy won a gold and two silvers with pilots Linda Kelly and Eve McCrystal, swimmer Róisín Ní Riain won silver and bronze, and sprinter Orla Comerford won a bronze in an explosive 100 metres final.
It was a slightly smaller medal haul than the team might have expected. But elsewhere there were plenty of stories of personal bests and high placings from Team Ireland, right up to the last competitor, powerlifter Britney Arendse, who set a new personal best and finished fourth. Ellen Keane, a trailblazer for Ireland in her third Paralympics, also finished fourth in her last games.
From small beginnings in Rome in 1960, the Paralympics this year had 4,400 competitors, using the same magnificent facilities as the Olympic Games a few weeks previously. Paris, again, deserves congratulations. The decision to hold the Paralympics in the same location as the Olympics Games has yielded great dividends.
It was impossible, watching the games, not to be inspired by the spectacle of athletes focusing on what was possible, with great courage and determination. The ethos of the games is one of encouraging participation – finding ways for the athletes to take part in many of the sports seen in the Olympics a few weeks early, alongside other, specially adapted events. As well as providing role models, the games contain an important message of how – with imagination and resources – real inclusion can be fostered across society.