7 September marks the first day of the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio and, to get things off to a good start, Google has created a colourful Doodle.
Following a sport-packed summer that included Euro 2016 and the Olympics, it is now the turn of the Paralympics to catch the public’s attention as the event gets underway in Rio de Janeiro today (7 September).
Originally organised as a small gathering of disabled British WWII veterans in 1948, the event now spans 11 days with 4,500 athletes from across 176 countries expected to compete.
Of those 4,500 athletes taking part, 46 will be coming from Team Ireland across nine different sports.
Based on Team Ireland’s performance during the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, where we picked up 16 medals, there are high hopes for achieving a similar or better performance this year.
Joining in one the celebration of these athletes is Google, which has curated a new Google Doodle to mark the beginning of the games, showing several cartoon drawings of some of the 22 sports that will be seen at the event.
In a statement on its choice of Doodle, Google said: “Today’s Doodle celebrates the opening of the 2016 Summer Paralympics and highlights the incredible feats of athleticism the participants will demonstrate in Rio.
“They’ll go for gold during a year of firsts: Rio, the first Latin American city to host the Paralympics, will debut canoeing and paratriathlon among the more than 500 existing events.”
Main image via Shutterstock
