News from Berlin
Paralympic Youth Training Held in Berlin
May 16th, 2014
News from Berlin – The Spring Youth Training for the Paralympics national finals were held last week in Berlin, Germany. This tournament event was created in 2010 by the German School Sports Foundation in cooperation with the German Disabled Sports Association, and has been held twice a year since 2010. It is the first competition to bring together nationwide students with disabilities, as part of youth development projects like the similar national competition of schools ‘Youth Training for the Olympics’.
This year, the spring session competition brought about 200 students from all over Germany. The participants were invited to play sports such as wheelchair basketball, table tennis and “goalball”, a ball sport for the visually impaired.
Two Berliner teams won the silver medals: in the wheelchair basketball competition, attended by 2,500 spectators, and in the table tennis contest (the Marianne-Buggenhagen-Schule of Pankow and the Carl-Linné-Schule of Lichtenberg).
Though supported by the media and prominent world-class athletes, these competitions are threatened because of federal budget cuts, making it difficult to know if a competition will be held in 2015. In any case, the fall session will be held in September in Berlin.
News from Berlin - Berlin Global