Sporting Life

High-performance Paralympic Games push all sorts of human limits

Yip Pin Xiu (left) and Tatyana McFadden. PHOTOS: ST FILE, AFP
New: Gift this subscriber-only story to your friends and family

There's a carbon-fibre foot used by sprinters, with a part called the Vertical Shock Pylon, which has a seriously cool name. The Cheetah. There's a racing wheelchair which Tatyana McFadden - what, you don't know her and her 17 medals? - used at the 2016 Games which was designed by a company that knows a little about swift motoring. Like BMW.

So let's be clear, these Games that start on Tuesday (Aug 24), with 4,400 athletes in 539 events in 22 sports, they're not some fun pastime. The Paralympics are a high-tech, high-performance congregation of the highly motivated, all of them tussling for medals which have circular indentations on them so that visually-impaired athletes can tell them apart. One indentation means gold. Two means silver.

Already a subscriber? 

Read the full story and more at $9.90/month

Get exclusive reports and insights with more than 500 subscriber-only articles every month

Unlock these benefits

  • All subscriber-only content on ST app and straitstimes.com

  • Easy access any time via ST app on 1 mobile device

  • E-paper with 2-week archive so you won't miss out on content that matters to you

Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.