End of the XII Paralympic Summer Games in Athens
The Paralympic Games have been overshadowed by a tragic road accident that claimed the lives of seven high school students who were travelling to Athens to attend the competitions. Yesterday's Closing Ceremony was therefore limited to protocol segments, such as the entry of athletes, the speech by the IPC President, Phil Craven, the handover of the Paralympic flag to the Beijing Organising Committee and the extinguishing of the flame.
Very high competition level
The Paralympic Games have been a great success from different points of view. The competition level was extremely high with several world records broken. For example, in swimming, 97 world and 156 Paralympic records were broken - an impressive total of 253 records.
Medals winners representing 75 National Paralympic Committees
Athletes representing 75 different National Paralympic Committees (NPCs) have managed to win a medal. This illustrates impressively the universality of disabled sport.
Increasing interest of broadcasters
Almost 50 broadcasters were present in Athens - a new record! This confirmed the notable growth in interest for the Paralympic Games since the Sydney 2000 Paralympics. The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) expects this positive trend to continue for Turin in 2006 and Beijing in 2008.
Over 800,000 tickets sold
Over 800,000 spectators attended the Paralympic Games over the last 11 days. The ticket sales were clearly above expectation.
Over 600 anti-doping tests
Doping control was also high on the agenda of the Paralympic Games: more than 600 tests have been carried out, resulting in seven adverse analytical findings (two out-of-competition and five in-competition). For the first time at a Paralympic Games, a guide has returned a positive sample in an anti-doping test. It was also the first anti-doping violation in IPC cycling.
IPC Athletes' Committee
The following athletes were elected by their peers to the IPC's Athletes' Committee: Ljiljana Ljubisic (Athletics, Canada), Ana Garcia-Arcicollar Vallejo (Swimming, Spain), Robert Balk (Athletics, USA), Konstantinos Fykas (Swimming, Greece), Rutger Sturkenboom (Swimming, the Netherlands) and Beatrice Hess (Swimming, France).