More than 400 differently abled people gathered together at Ķeizarmežs in Rīga on Saturday, May 23, for Paralympic Sports Day, competing in ten different athletic events. The competition helped participants to improve faith in their own capabilities, including those who took part for the first time and those who have already won medals at the Paralympic Games. The event was also inspirational to countless fans who can now thing about the fact that if differently abled people can engage in sports, then we can join together to do much more.
Many people were interested in sitting down in Aigars Apinis’ wheelchair to try their hand at the shot put. This allowed them to sense how the athlete feels when competing, and most participants agreed that it would be hard for them to achieve his outstanding results.
Several members of Parliament took part in seated volleyball – Raimonds Bergmanis, Jānis Dombrava, Jānis Ruks and Aldis Adamovičs, joining those who play the game while seated.
The president of the Latvian Paralympic Committee, Daiga Dadzīte, noted that this was the fifth anniversary of Paralympic Sports Day, saying that she is delighted about the fact that the number of participants has increased, and the quality of the event was improved. The committee invests a lot of work in the competition, not least in terms of informing differently abled people about the event and helping them to get there. Dadzīte says that this is the most important sports event for differently abled people each year, and for many it is the only time during the year that they can all get together.
Mechanical rowing was very popular, with more than 100 participants trying their hand at it. Coach Aleksejs Lavrenovs from Daugavpils helped to organise the competition and welcomed the fact that he could inform many different abled people about mechanical rowing. He said that he was particularly delighted to meet a young woman who is prepared to train in the discipline in Daugavpils.
“At Paralympic Sports Day today, we found once again that the largest support programme for Latvia’s Paralympians, ‘You Are. You Can’ really brings people together and encourages other to do the same,” says the director of the Citadele Bank’s Corporate Communications Division, Ieva Prauliņa. “It is wonderful that there are so many differently abled people in Latvia who want to take part in sports, and today they showed once again that efforts to achieve more and to meet other people encourages them to enjoy a more thorough life.”
Senior and junior competitions were held in seated volleyball, bocce ball, 3x3 wheelchair basketball, darts, swimming, power lifting, novus, table tennis, table hockey and mechanical rowing on Concept ergometers. Winners received cups, and the top three in each event got medals. There were also surprise prizes. Participants were given a warm lunch and a T-shirt with the events symbols. At the conclusion of the event, participants joined in song with the musician Andris Kivičs. Actual Paralympians were on hand to talk to people about what their sports federations do, thus facilitating healthy competition among athletes.
As has been reported in the past, the Citadele Bank launched the “You Are. You Can” movement in 2012 as the largest support programme for Latvia’s Paralympians. The aim is to facilitate the development of Paralympic sports in Latvia, bring in new differently abled people, and change public attitudes toward differently abled people and what they can do.
Paralympic Sports Day was organised by the Latvian Paralympic Committee in partnership with the Citadele Bank and the Rīga City Council’s Department of Education, Culture and Sports.