I’m not crying, you are.
During the Rio Olympics, the BBC desperately attempted to add a layer of human interest to each British competitor. At the times the coverage verged on X-Factor for sport, with inspirational tales of athletes overcoming the odds to make the games.
Of course each athlete had made sacrifices and overcame the odds to reach such an elite stage of sport, but it all felt very forced and borderline manipulative.
Every single athlete had a harrowing backstory that needed to be shoehorned in by the presenter, as though achieving sporting excellence in their field wasn’t enough of an achievement in its own right.
There’s no need to do anything of the sort with the Paralympics. Each athlete has overcome insurmountable odds to makes the Games and it’s difficult not be inspired by their feats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vavJK1McHUo
The story of Alex Zanardi is one particularly moving story from the Rio Paralympics. The Italian was a Formula 1 driver, but lost both of his legs in a horrific crash in 2001.
Zanardi survived and has since become one the world’s best hand-cyclists. The 49-year-old won gold in the H5 road time trial and silver in the road race in Rio this week.
Alex Brooker, a British journalist, made an impassioned speech about Zanardi on Channel 4 show the Last Leg on Thursday night that has got a lot of people talking.
“To see somebody like that talk the way he does, to me it means the world and it inspires me and it makes me proud to be disabled,” Brooker said.
“That epitomises the Paralympic Games for me.”
Powerful stuff.
Whichever of you is chopping onions around here needs to stop. Well done @alex_brooker, this is superb. https://t.co/5MdX0m39BW
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) September 16, 2016
The Last Leg has again been a triumph during these Games. @alex_brooker's unexpectedly poignant tribute to the great Zanardi a case in point
— Owen Gibson (@owen_g) September 15, 2016
The word inspiration is bandied about a lot, but here @alex_brooker spells out why #Paralympics is so important https://t.co/Lzs7OeDmWU
— Anna Kessel MBE (@Anna_Kessel) September 16, 2016
Love the passion and honesty from @alex_brooker here https://t.co/9kSlUjNMsl
— Lee McKenzie (@LeeMcKenzieTV) September 16, 2016
If you haven't seen this yet, do yourself a favour – both Zanardi and @alex_brooker are absolute legends. https://t.co/wH9MeOLJCC
— Rick Edwards (@rickedwards1) September 16, 2016
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