TNABA and the U.S. Paralympics Movement

The Tennessee Association of Blind Athletes is now recognized by the U.S. Olympic Committee and Paralympic Committee as an official U.S. Paralympic Sports Club. TNABA is proud to be a part of the Paralympic movement and work with the U.S. Paralympics to bring the spirit of the Paralympic Movement to Tennessee.

The U.S. Paralympics is partnering with community organizations from across the country to create a network of Paralympic Sport Clubs.

Paralympic Sport Clubs are community-based programs developed to involve youth and adults with physical and visual disabilities in sports and physical activity, regardless of skill level. All programs and activities will be based in the community and are run by the local organization.

With 21 million Americans with physical disabilities, including thousands of military personnel who have sustained serious injuries while on active duty, this is an important community need. TNABA is proud to work with other adaptive sports agencies and the Wounded Warriors Program of Fort Campbell to provide all adaptive athletes with the resources and tools to succeed in their dreams of athletics.

What is the Paralympics?

The following information is from the article Paralympic Games found on Wikipedia.

The Paralympic Games are a major international multi-sport event where athletes with physical disabilities compete; this includes athletes with mobility disabilities, amputations, blindness, and Cerebral Palsy. There are Winter and Summer Paralympic Games, which are held immediately following their respective Olympic Games. All Paralympic Games are governed by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

The Paralympics have grown from a small gathering of British World War II veterans in 1948 to become one of the largest international sporting events by the early 21st century. Paralympians strive for equal treatment with Olympic athletes without disabilities, but there is a large funding gap between Olympic and Paralympic athletes. There are also sports, such as track and field, that are resistant to Paralympians who wish to compete with athletes without disabilities, though there have been Paralympians who have participated in the Olympic Games.

The Paralympic Games include athletes with physical disabilities, and are run in parallel with the Olympic Games, while the IOC-recognized Special Olympics World Games include athletes with intellectual disabilities, and the Deaflympics include deaf athletes. The present formal explanation for the name "Paralympic" is that it is derived from the Greek preposition παρά, pará ("beside" or "alongside") and thus refers to a competition held in parallel with the Olympic Games. The Summer Games of 1988 held in Seoul was the first time the term "Paralympic" came into official use.

Given the wide variety of disabilities that Paralympic athletes have, there are several categories in which the athletes compete. The allowable disabilities are broken down into six broad categories. The categories are: amputee, Cerebral Palsy, intellectual disability, wheelchair, visually impaired, and Les Autres (literally "The Others", which are athletes with disabilities that do not fall into the other five categories; these include dwarfism, multiple sclerosis, and congenital deformities). These categories are broken down further into classifications, which vary from sport to sport. The classification system has led to cheating controversies revolving around athletes who over-stated their disabilities in addition to the use of performance-enhancing drugs seen in other events.

Videos

Check out these great videos to learn more about TNABA and the U.S. Paralympics Sports Club Program and Movement.