One year to the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games: top-level competition to light up two-day festival
Brazil v Argentina in football, a race to define the world’s fastest sprinter and USA v Brazil in sitting volleyball among the highlights
Jefinho will lead Brazil’s visually-impaired five-a-side football team against rivals Argentina (Toronto 2015)
A 100m sprint to define the fastest para-athlete in the world, five-a-side football between age-old rivals Brazil and Argentina, wheelchair basketball and a sitting volleyball match between Brazil and the USA will be just some of the highlights of the festival taking place alongside Rio’s iconic Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas this holiday weekend to mark one year to go until the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.
The activities are scheduled for Sunday and Monday (6-7 September) at the Parque dos Patins (a park alongside Lagoa), and will be free. Monday, a national holiday in Brazil, will also see tickets for the 2016 Games go on sale.
Click here to see the full schedule for the Paralympic Festival on 6-7 September.
The festivities start at 11am on Sunday with the qualifying race to decide which para-athletes will go through to the 100m sprint finals on Monday, when the fastest male and female para-athletes in the world, across all classifications, will be crowned.
Physically integrated dance kicks off the cultural line-up on Sunday, with choreography that gets dancers with and without a physical disability moving. Workshops for children and outdoor cinema screenings will continue throughout the day, while DJ João Brasil – known locally as the “mash-up king” for his mix of hip-hop, funk and electronic rhythms – will be on the decks.
The Brazilian sitting volleyball team will take on the USA (Photo: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
On Monday morning, the sport will start with a sitting volleyball game at 10am between Brazil (runners up at last year’s world championships) and the USA, followed by a reception for athletes that took part in the Parapan American Games in Toronto in August this year. A good dose of adrenaline will follow with the final 100m sprint, scheduled for 12.50pm.
The two best teams in the world when it comes to five-a-side football for the visually impaired – Brazil and Argentina – will play at 2pm, followed by a wheelchair basketball match at 3pm.
The cultural programme gets going again at 4pm, with more workshops for children, outdoor film screenings and another chance to have a go at physically integrated dance. Local hip-hop-style dance-offs – batalha do passinho – and music from the Embaixadores da Alegria samba school will be the soundtrack to the afternoon, alongside DJ João Brasil back on the wheels of steel.
The event follows the success of the interactive sport festival that Rio 2016 staged in Flamengo Park last year, to celebrate the two years until the Games milestone.
