At the 2012 London Paralympics, athletes competed in venues full of spectators who cheered from the first event to the last. Lines for tickets extended out the doors. "Everybody in the crowd was legitimately excited," said US swimmer Brad Snyder, who won two gold medals in London. "It wasn't production. It wasn't any magic." London set a new standard for Paralympic attendance and organization. Four years later, concerns over budget problems and slow ticket sales have plagued the Rio Games. The athletes who will march in Wednesday night's opening ceremony at historic Maracana Stadium said their performances won't be affected, and they hope the new, higher profile of the Paralympics won't be either. "We want progress," Snyder said. "We want to say that we've taken a step forward." Rio Paralympics organizers have seen an uptick in ticket sales in recent days, announcing Tuesday that 1.6 million tickets have been sold. Yet concerns about budget and lags in preparation linger. On Tuesday, workers still were paving parts of the plaza around the Olympic Tennis Centre in Rio's Olympic Park. "I don't want the movement to plateau or become stagnant," said US wheelchair basketball player Desiree Miller, who also competed in London. "I want it to catch fire after Rio so by the time Tokyo comes around there's not a person in the States or a person in the world that doesn't know who a Paralympian is." Organizers in London, in the country that gave birth to the Paralympics after World War II, sold a record 2.7 million tickets. Miller said that during the 2012 Games, people on the streets of London knew who she was and what sport she played. The spotlight followed her home to Wisconsin. Customers recognize her at the sporting goods store where she works. "They'll use the word Paralympian," Miller said. "Just for the public to use that word is huge — that people know the difference." "We've known all along the power of the Paralympic movement, but London was the first time it got shown to the community in a really big way, not only from a production standpoint, from a spectator standpoint," Snyder said. Two new events — canoe-kayak and triathlon — make their appearance on the 22-sport menu, with competitors from 161 nations — but not one Russian amongst them. Russian para-athletes, who finished second behind China in the London 2012 medals table, were last month barred from the Sept 7-18 Games by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) following a World Anti-Doping Agency report which alleged a vast state-sponsored doping program. Six countries are sending athletes for the very first time — Aruba, Congo, Malawi, Somalia, Sao Tome and Principe and Togo. Political and economic turmoil will be the last thing on the minds of the athletes however as Rio looks to produce new sporting heroes now that London 2012 sprint star Oscar Pistorius is in a South African prison for the killing of his girlfriend. The 41 career gold medals won by blind American swimmer Trischa Zorn between 1980 and 2004 looks unbeatable, but the Paralympics will inevitably produce new tales of courage. China will have a record 308 athletes in Rio looking to beat their 95 gold medals from London when they topped the table for the third straight Paralympics. They have swimmer Xu Qing competing in his fourth and possibly last Games, seeking to add to his seven gold medals. IPC president Philip Craven says that despite the cuts, the show goes on. "The Games will happen, but they may not be — I wouldn't say tip-top, but maybe not as relatively luxurious as in the past," he declared. "Paralympians are resilient people, (as are) the staff teams that back them up, and our Paralympic family will pull together," he vowed. — Agencies
