1984 Summer Paralympics


The 1984 International Games for the Disabled, canonically the 1984 Summer Paralympics were the seventh Paralympic Games to be held. There were in two separate competitions: one in Stoke Mandeville, United Kingdom for wheelchair athletes with spinal cord injuries and the other at the Mitchel Athletic Complex and Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, United States of America for wheelchair and ambulatory athletes with cerebral palsy, amputees, and les autres . Stoke Mandeville had been the location of the Stoke Mandeville Games from 1948 onwards, seen as the precursors to the Paralympic Games.
As with the 1984 Summer Olympics, the Soviet Union and other communist countries except China, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia boycotted the Paralympic Games. The Soviet Union did not participate in the Paralympics at the time, arguing that they have no disabled people in the country. The USSR made its Paralympic debut in 1988, during Perestroika.

Ceremonies

In the opening ceremonies, patchy showers greeted the 14000 spectators packed into the Mitchel Park stadium for the 2pm start of the New York Games opening ceremony on 19 June. New York radio personality William B. Williams introduced everyone with a welcome speech. Entertainers such as Bill Buzzeo and the Dixie Ramblers, Richie Havens, The New Image Drum and Bugle Corps, the ARC Gospel Chorus and the Square Dance Extravaganza followed the introduction speech. At the closing ceremonies, Commander Archie Cameron, President of ICC officially closed the games with a short speech acknowledging the athletes and the next host city, Seoul, South Korea. The flag of the games were then lowered and American athletes carried the flags back to the reviewing stand where they were handed over the President of the Organizing Committee, Dr William T. Callahan.

Mascot

The mascot for the 1984 Paralympic Games was Dan D. Lion, which was designed by an art teacher Maryanne McGrath Higgins.

Sports

Competitors were divided into five disability-specific categories: amputee, cerebral palsy, visually impaired, wheelchair, and les autres. The wheelchair category was for those competitors who used a wheelchair due to a spinal cord disability. However some athletes in the amputee and cerebral palsy categories also competed in wheelchairs. Within the sport of athletics, a wheelchair marathon event was held for the first time. The Trails for the first wheelchair event to be held at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games was held in conjunction with the New York Games. However, despite the long and established history of using "paralympic" terminology, in the United States the US Olympic Committee prohibited the Games organizers from using the term. The seventeen contested sports are listed below, along with the disability categories which competed in each.
The host nations, Great Britain and the United States, are highlighted. Bahrain, China, Jordan, Luxembourg, Trinidad and Tobago won their first ever medals.

Participating delegations

Fifty-four delegations took part in the 1984 Paralympics. Bahrain, China, East Germany, Faroe Islands, Jordan, Liechtenstein, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela made their first appearances, India and Portugal returned to the Games after a 12 year absence.
Odeda Rosenthal, a professor of humanities at a local community college on Long Island and translator for the Austrian team highlighted a number of problems at the games in a series of articles. She highlighted a number of issues such as poor communication, administrative hiccups and even bus drivers not knowing the routes to scheduled events that even caused some teams to miss events completely. Rosenthal continues by slamming the work by the Police Chief claiming the Chief "took the opposite tack of anything that was suggested to sort out the mess". However, overall reports and the general impression given off by the games was a friendly atmosphere and volunteers trying their hardest under difficult conditions.