SUCCOUR came to Nigeria recently through the arena of sports, from an unexpected quarter with the superlative performances of some of the country's sportsmen and women who participated in the just concluded paralympic games in London.Pragmatically proving to the doubting Thomases that there exists abundant ability in disability, the paralympic athletes put their challenges at bay and proved their mettle at the London games.HARVESTING a total of 13 medals ' six gold, five silver and two bronze ' the Nigerian contingent solidly registered their names as the best ambassadors so far, in the annals of the nation's participation in the paralympic games.IT is ironical, however, that the able-bodied athletes, who represented the country in the last Olympic games, over which the nation invested a whopping N2.5 billion to nurture, came back home empty handed to the widespread disappointment of Nigerians.MOST astonishing is that the paralympians did not only win convincingly, they also created four new world records in the games that were keenly contested by 163 countries where experienced instructors and sophisticated training equipment abound. In fact, the Nigerian team emerged as the 22nd best in the world. ALTHOUGH the country led Africa's medals' list at the initial stage of the games, some preparative hiccups sent Nigeria to the third place with Tunisia coming first, having won 19 medals consisting of nine gold, five silver and five bronze, to beat South Africa which had 25 medals ' eight gold, 12 silver and seven bronze to the second position.IT is nevertheless titillating that the country exploited its comparative advantage in power lifting event by excelling as the paralympics overall number one winner in that game where it secured 12 out of the 13 medals it won at the London games.THE obvious lessons to be learnt from the glorious performances of the paralympians are legion. First, the victorious outing of the contingent has shown that disability should not be equated with inability. The paralympians, as it has now been revealed, struggled and achieved excellence with raw determination, absolute commitment and uncommon courage inspite of their physical challenges, where the able-bodied Olympians failed. Of note is the athletic feat of Yakub Adesokan who gave the country its first gold medal, with a world record in the men's 48kg category, by lifting 178kg which, of course, translates to over three times his body weight. SECOND, the Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the forth coming Olympics should realise that every game has equal relevance and medal value at the Olympics, implying that emphasis must be placed on the games in which the country possesses probable advantage of winning medals. This strategy was aptly explored by the LOC of the paralympic games when it ensured that abundant energies were dissipated on the weight lifting event which paid off, as manifested by the country winning 12 medals in that game alone.THIRD, the paralympians, faced by the palpable dilemma of neglect and paucity of funds to receive adequate training for the games, could have recoiled to their cocoons and attributed their failure to official lassitude, but they stoically absorbed this preparatory frustration and the team handlers and their athletes worked assiduously with available but Spartan and archaic equipment to achieve laurels, and therefore engraved their names in the record book of the epochal achievers in Nigeria and the world.WHILE commending Mr President for publicly acknowledging the achievements of these worthy ambassadors through a golden handshake, cash and national honour's awards to the bargain, we want to congratulate the paralympians for not only bringing honour to Nigeria with their medals but for also affording the flag of the country to be flown at the global comity of civilised nations.
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