The Paralympics are about athletic prowess. The origin of the word is from "parallel" — an event running alongside the Olympics.
Markus Rehm — known as the "Blade Jumper" — lost his right leg below the knee when he was 14 in a wakeboarding accident, but earlier this year he jumped 8.62 meters, a distance that would have won the last seven Olympics, including the Tokyo Games. Tokyo's winning long jump was 8.41 meters.
"The stigma attached to disability changes when you watch the sport," said Craig Spence, a spokesman for the International Paralympic Committee. "These games will change your attitude toward disability.
"If you look around Japan, it's very rare you see persons with disabilities on the street," Spence added. "We've got to go from protecting people to empowering people and creating opportunities for people to flourish in society."
Archer Matt Stutzman was born with no arms, just stumps at the shoulders. He holds a world record — for any archer, disabled or otherwise — for the longest, most accurate shot, hitting a target at 310 yards, or about 283 meters.
The rest of the 4,403 Paralympic athletes in Tokyo — a record number for any Paralympics — will be telling their stories until the closing ceremony.
"I feel like I'm meeting movie stars," said 14-year-old Ugandan swimmer Husnah Kukundakwe, who is competing for the first time.
Paralympic organizers played a part last week in launching "WeThe15," a human-rights campaign aimed at 1.2 billion people — 15% of the global population — with disabilities. They've also produced a 90-second video to promote the cause of social inclusion.
"Difference is a strength, it is not a weakness," Parsons said, speaking in the largely empty stadium. "And as we build back better in the post-pandemic world, it must feature societies where opportunities exist for all."
Shingo Katori, a member of boy band SMAP that had its roots in the 1980s, now works with Paralympic organizers. He acknowledged his early fears of working with people with disabilities.
"Frankly speaking, people in wheelchairs or people with artificial legs — I hadn't had an opportunity to meet these people and I didn't know how to communicate with them," he said. "But through Paralympic sports, such hesitation faded away."
