The 2014 Winter Paralympic Games Are Here / Why Should You Watch These Games

By Nathan Young on March 6, 2014

The 2014 Winter Paralympic Games are here! From March 7-16, around 700 athletes with a physical disability or visual impairment will descend on Sochi. Forty five countries will attend and participate in 72 medal events. Team USA will be sending 77 athletes to Sochi, but due to the crisis going on over at the Ukraine, the USA will not be sending any presidential delegations to the winter Paralympic Games in Sochi. President Obama does give his best wishes to the Paralympic athletes going to Sochi for the games. Too bad Russia is invading a country during the Paralympic Games, because I am afraid the games will get less coverage due to the Ukraine and Crimea invasion.

Just like in the 2012 London Paralympic Games, Geek Alabama will provide a daily medal count on The Evening Post from March 8-16. Here are the final results from the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

And unlike the 2012 Paralympic Games, which NBC pretty much ignored. This time, NBC and the NBC Sports Network will be showing much more coverage! NBCSN will show the Opening Ceremony live on Friday March 7th from 10 am to 12 pm Central. And throughout the competition, NBCSN will show several competitions live during the early morning hours, and on tape delay during the day. NBC will also show some coverage during the weekends as well. To see the full schedule from NBC and NBCSN, go to: http://www.nbcolympics.com/content/sochi-2014-paralympics-telecast-schedule

You can also watch every Paralympic event live and free (no cable subscription required) on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/ParalympicSportTV and at: http://www.paralympic.org/sochi-2014

For USA viewers, watch the Paralympics at: http://www.teamusa.org/Video

So why should you watch the 2014 Winter Paralympic games? One, many of the Paralympic athletes are competing with equipment such as wheelchairs and prosthetics. It is fascinating to watch these athletes compete in the Paralympic Games while also having to maneuver with their equipment. Yes, these special people have some physical limitations, but they train and compete just as hard as the Olympic athletes you saw on TV a few weeks ago. These Olympics are called the Paralympics for a reason, they parallel the regular Olympic games and demonstrate how people of every disability can be as athletic as they want to be.

Technology for disabled athletes has gotten impressive over the past few years. Amputees have access to advanced prosthetics that are run by a computer chip. And wheelchairs have advanced so athletes can lead a normal life and train like the regular athletes. There are five Paralympic sports in the winter games – alpine skiing (including the addition of snowboarding), biathlon, cross-country skiing, wheelchair curling, and sled hockey. And if you can, watch some coverage of the 2014 Winter Paralympics. You will be impressed seeing these athletes compete and perform just as hard as what you saw during the Winter Olympic Games. Here are the medals for the 2014 Winter Paralympic Games!

To wrap up this post, I wanted to share two videos to get you pumped up for the 2014 Winter Paralympic Games! The first video from Samsung Mobile features several Paralympic athletes with a great message! Sport doesn’t care about abilities or disabilities. Sport makes no distinctions. All that matters is that you give your best to win.
What’s your problem? Sport Doesn’t Care.

The second video from Procter & Gamble is a Paralympic version of the “Thank You Mom” Olympic commercial. In this ad called Tough Love, it features moms who encourages the sometimes reluctant athletes to compete rather than coddling them. This is a great video!