Paralympic Movement’s greatest sporting event of the year, the Lyon 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships will be followed closely by seven Rio 2016™ Organising Committee’s professionals. Mariana Mello and Marcos Lima, from the Paralympic Integration team, Guilherme Marques and Paulo Jaques, from Sport, Marina Nishitani and Isabella Nogueira, from Transport, and Ariel Fertonani, from Venues, are registered in the observers programme of the official event promoted by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

Around 1,300 athletes from more than 90 countries are expected at the World Championships that take place on 19-28 July at Stade du Rhône and hands out 214 gold medals. The competition opens a new cycle towards the Rio 2016™ Paralympic Games.

The Organising Committee for South America’s first edition of the Games sees the event as a great opportunity to learn and to strengthen bonds with the IPC as well as the National Paralympic Committees (NPCs) besides observing every competition detail.

“We’ll take part in a formal observers programme that lasts three days besides parallel programmes on several topics such as ceremonies and functional classification”, said Mariana Mello, Head of Paralympic Integration.

Guilherme Marques, Sport Group Manager, said the observers programme has a full agenda. “We’ll follow the whole event since planning up to organisation as well as the athletes’ dynamics both inside and outside of the stadium… The competition will last for nine days and the observers programme will last for three. From the 22nd until the 24th, work will be intense”, he said.

For Marina Nishitani, Rio 2016™ Transport Analyst, participating in the event as an observer is extremely important. She remarked that the main lessons of this study for her functional area must be learned from the programme on ceremonies.

“The Paralympic Games represent a great challenge for the Transport Area. In Lyon, we’ll have the opportunity to observe, understand and learn from the organisers’ mistakes and successful shots as well as to bring to our planning, which is already in full swing, the lessons learned from the experience that we’ll gain. I look forward to this opportunity that the Committee is offering and I’m especially flattered. Our experiences there will certainly enrich our projects and improve our knowledge on the Paralympic ‘world’”, Nishitani said.

Chinese athlets won a total of 86 podiums in London 2012 only in athletics (Foto: IPC/Evgeniya Bocharnikova)

China won 86 medals in London

Chinese athletes finished first in the London 2012 Paralympic Games medal table. There were 33 gold medals out of 86 in total. Russia finished second with 19 gold medals out of 36 in total. The United Kingdom, the United States and Tunisia completed the list of first five countries in the medal table. Brazil finished seventh, with seven gold medals, eight silver and three bronze.

The Brazilian Paralympic Athletics team has been training since Wednesday, the 10th, at the sports park in Chassieu, a city close to Lyon. Out of 35 athletes, 25 competed in London 2012 and 15 participated in the last edition of the World Championships, in 2011, in Christchurch, New Zealand.

“We are confident about the results. Brazil has a very strong team and I believe we’ll also have positive surprises among beginners”, Ciro Winckler, the team’s coordinator, said.

All London gold medallists will compete in Lyon with particular reference to Alan Fonteles, London champion in 200m and current record holder for the 100m in the T44 class, Terezinha Guilhermina, the world’s fastest visually impaired woman, Shirlene Coelho, gold in London 2012 in Javelin, F37 class, and Yohansson do Nascimento, who will defend his title in the 100m of the T46 class. Yohansson also holds the record in this event, which he set in London 2012, with the 10s94 mark.

For more information about the competition click here. The Paralympic TV will broadcast the event live.