Original subtitles

It's funny because

when you see the last Marvel Avengers,

well... it's a team of

superheroes...

who try to save humankind,

save people,

fight for success.

And, well, we are quite similar.

We are all superheroes...

because we have all experienced tragedy.

We have all lived through something

that didn't allow us to succeed.

That's where our strength lies.

Life is a fight.

We are trying to save the world.

The Olympics is where heroes are created.

The Paralympics is where the heroes come.

At the age of 12, I was part of a scout group.

They gave you, like, this kind of nickname.

My name was the Rising Phoenix.

Because the phoenix can live and die and burn and live again.

My scout group saw me in each step,

living, burning, dying, then live again.

When I was really young, my coach came to me and he told me,

"There is the paradise,

and the name of paradise is Olympic Games.

You just need to work a lot, every day, every hour as best as you can,

in order to get to the Olympic Games."

So, I was dreaming about Olympic,

and then it changed to the Paralympic, but it's almost is the same thing.

Bebe!

When I was 14 years old, I was a torch bearer

to represent all the future Paralympic athletes.

If you look at the history of the Paralympic Games,

there have been all the ups and downs,

you know, one good, one not so good.

If you needed to choose a place where you think we can be successful,

that will be London.

It's our birthplace, the country that created the Paralympic movement.

Organizing events and being creative and challenging stereotypes.

London is the capital of the world.

The organizers of London 2012 began preparing for the Paralympics.

According to the charity Mencap,

reported disability hate crime is at a record high

and anything, therefore, that adjusts attitudes toward disability matters.

When I mentioned to colleagues of mine

that I was going to go to this interview for the Paralympic Games,

the majority of people told me, "Don't get involved."

"This is sport for atheletes with disability."

"No, that's too complicated. It's not really sport."

All eyes will be on the world's Paralympians,

as their emblem replaces the five rings.

During the Olympics, four or five days before the end,

all these black billboards seemed to spring up,

saying "Thanks for the warm-up."

That was advertising the Paralympics on TV, coming.

"Thanks for the warm-up."

I mean, I'm not sure the Olympics would be happy with that,

but I tell you, it touched a spot with me.

Philip doesn't want to be second, he wants to be first.

- Craven still has it. - He had been an athlete.

And he wanted that the other athletes had even better opportunities than he had.

But two more for Phil Craven.

Xavi Gonzalez, good guy, good guy.

If it's not right between the president and the CEO, forget it.

We wanted to change the way people saw people with a disability.

It was a home for...

all nations.

It's like a team sport, not an individual sport.

We often stick together. When we go to competitions,

we are always there to cheer each other on.

Just that whole atmosphere

of being a part of something bigger than just yourself, it was incredible.

It's like this unspoken mission that we have.

Every Paralympian has had a life where they've been told,

time and time again, that,

you know, life is gonna be too impossible for them.

The Iraqi team was literally, like, a foot from us,

and we had people on our team that were injured in Iraq.

The world needs to see more of that.

We are headed into the opening ceremonies.

The Paralympic Games

is also about transforming our perception of the world.

We are all different.

There is no such thing as a standard or run-of-the-mill human being.

We had to provide multiple stages

upon which they could perform

and show the world and inspire the world and excite the world.

The Games are the shop window of the movement.

The Games are the main thing that can keep the movement moving forward.

I declare open the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

There it is, the Agitos,

the Paralympic logo hanging magnificently from Tower Bridge in London.

It's my first Paralympics. I'm only gonna be 19 years old.

Good morning!

You feel worried about

the horror stories�about the history of the Paralympics, like quiet stadiums.

You never know what it's gonna be like until you get there, basically.

It's not consistent at all.

So, I was, like, apprehensive and nervous.

They walk you under the stadium,

because they have a track where everyone does their final bit of preparation.

All the athletes are together. It's very serious.

A lot of people, based on what they'd been told,

thought it was gonna be a failure

and that they weren't gonna be able to sell tickets.

The stadiums were packed.

The sport was incredible.

Oh, that's an amazing shot!

That's got to be the shot of the championship.

But what they saw was undoubtedly better than the Olympics itself.

Set.

The atmosphere is absolutely electric!

Zhang on the inside, Dave Weir's going wide.

Dave Weir needs to draw on all the reserves of confidence

and strength here, because this is so, so close. Zhang!

Dave Weir's now taking the lead. Dave Weir's done it again!

We have been graced by greatness tonight.

For me, and for so many people out there,

especially young kids...

...to see individuals like that...

...go on and achieve what they've achieved...

...no amount of books that you read,

no amount of teaching in class that you can have...

...is going to give you the same inspiration

as being able to watch something which you've been told is impossible.

Ladies and gentlemen,

it is now the final of the women's 100m Freestyle S9.

Representing Australia, Ellie Cole.

People have so many different physicalities in the Paralympics

compared to the Olympics.

In the Olympics, all the bodies look the same.

And then in�the Paralympics, none of the bodies look the same.

It is absolutely petrifying the moment before you race at the Paralympics.

Take your marks.

That cold water hits you, and you think, "This is it."

"This next minute is probably going to be the biggest minute of my entire life."

I want as many people in the world to see the Paralympics as possible,

because if my parents had known about the Paralympics

back when I was three years old, they would've had so much more hope

in what people with disabilities can do.

Oh, Ellie's first day walking.

Come on, Ellie.

I was actually born a healthy child,

but one day my mum was changing me,

and she found this bump behind my right knee.

The doctors told them

that I had a very rare form of cancer called a neurosarcoma.

- Ellie? - What?

- I love you. - I love you.

And so, I underwent quite a lot of chemotherapy.

With this chemotherapy,

I was actually getting more sick than I was from the cancer.

And the tumor wasn't getting any smaller.

My parents had to make the decision to amputate my leg

just after I turned three years old.

She said today, "I want my foot back."

That's great.

This is your foot, isn't it, Ellie?

It's staying right where it is.

I asked my mum

why she was so scared to have my leg amputated,

and she was worried that I was going to be a completely different girl.

My parents didn't know anybody else that had a disability,

and they were so worried that

any opportunity that I was ever going to have

when I was born was all of a sudden going to be taken away from me,

just in that one day.

The thing about living in Australia is that everybody needs to know how to swim.

Ellie, straight arms. Ellie? Straight arms.

I was swimming round in circles for quite a while.

Swimming is one of the only sports that I could have done as a kid

where I didn't feel like I had a disability.

So I absolutely loved swimming.

I told my mum that I wanted to be a ballerina,

because I'd just seen Swan Lake.

And I was like, "Oh, they're so graceful, and I wanna be graceful."

Turns out I've probably had

one of the most graceful swimming techniques

on the Australian swim team now because I really enjoy that aspect of it.

Ellie Cole, having the swim of her life,

at 20 years of age, from Australia.

- Cole is third. - Go, Ellie!

Come on, Ellie!

If I think back to young Ellie, I don't like to be beaten.

Go!

I decided that I wanted to be the fastest kid in my squad,

regardless of having one leg.

Cole now in the lead.

Look at this form. Cole, front lane six.

Ellie Cole, absolutely phenomenal!

For me to be able to make my mum so happy like that,

it's the silver lining of being sick.

I was not doing the Paralympics, so I had the opportunity to stay there

for the entire period of the Paralympic Games.

Hi, this is Bebe. Today I'm doing my first commentary.

I met so many Paralympic athletes and I fell in love with them,

because when you see someone, you just wanna know what's their story before.

Because why are they on the wheelchair? Why are they without arms and legs?

And there are just funny stories, and there are less funny stories.

"Just tell me what you did, please."

The long jump final...

It was the first time in my life I'd seen a stadium so full.

Jean-Baptiste Alaize is one of the favorites.

I chose long jump,

wanting to flee from something, I think.

A sense of...

leaving and never coming back.

Of flying,

of escaping...

I saw so much in a short time, growing up.

I lived through the worst thing, as a child.

I was haunted by this one nightmare.

I struggled to move on, to forget.

I am a survivor of the Burundi civil war, in 1993.

I remember everything, as if it was yesterday.

The Hutus wanted to exterminate all Tutsi reproductive families,

every mother and child.

I was three years old.

I didn't understand what was happening, why they were doing this.

I tried to flee from the killers with my mother.

But...

not fast enough.

And then I received four machete blows. That's how I lost my leg.

And another blow to my arm.

And here, on my head, and one to my back.

And after that, I was forced to witness...

forced to watch as my mother was murdered in front of me.

Yeah.

I woke up in a hospital. Had I been dead for four or five days?

I had external and internal bleeding.

Extraordinary. Three years old, and I survived this...

this massacre.

And then I had to rebuild my life, in an orphanage. Alone, abandoned.

Why do I love running and jumping?

It's as if I'm trying to escape what happened.

I run to escape.

Falling, getting up again. Falling, getting up again. That's life.

And this is relevant for many people. And I understood it very early.

And today, sport is what has saved me.

At my first Games, I didn't learn about victory,

but I learned a lot about humanity.

In the Paralympic sport, everybody has a story.

It comes from them breaking barriers

to be able to achieve what they wanted to achieve.

Move on and live life, even if others may think that you cannot.

When I was younger, I had lots of dreams.

I wanted to be a BMX rider and I was gonna do backflips and all sorts of stuff.

And I remember telling my dad I'm gonna be the next Michael Jordan,

back when Michael Jordan was the king.

Steal. He kept it inbounds. Here it is again.

Oh!

There was no way I was gonna be Michael Jordan.

No way.

I'm not tall enough, right?

But the one thing that caught my attention the most was cars.

I can drive it with my feet and outrace 90% of the people around me.

The car doesn't stereotype the driver.

It doesn't care if you have arms or don't have arms.

It just wants to be driven.

That's why I fell in love with archery.

A bow just wants to be shot.

The doctors said that there's no medical reason

on why I was born without any arms.

This is how I am. Merry Christmas.

My mom and dad tell stories all the time about how or why they decided to adopt me.

They weren't looking for anybody with a physical or mental disability.

Then someone calls them up and said,

"Hey, we have this kid, you should come check him out."

They're like, "Oh, and he has no arms."

And "Well, maybe we should think about this a bit."

They decided to take me out to eat, and I'm putting my face in my food,

like, I'm...

I'm eating like an animal, kind of, like, legitimately.

My two older sisters and my older brother were there, and my parents said,

"Notice that everybody in this restaurant is staring at him right now."

"Is this what you guys want?"

And they were like, "We aren't leaving without him."

And they took on the hard challenge of teaching me how to adapt to the world,

versus the world adapting to me.

So, at a very young age,

they were like, "We know you can do it. You can do it."

And I'm like, "No, I have no arms. Please help me."

And they're like, "Nope, sorry. You'll figure it out."

Probably within, like, a year or so,

I started enjoying the fact that I had that freedom of trying new things.

I remember when I was younger, I saw my brother climb an apple tree

and I wanted to climb that apple tree.

And I remember my dad said, like, "Hey, go ahead, climb the tree."

"You know, if you climb up the tree by yourself,

you have to climb down it by yourself."

And I was stuck up there for, like, 40 minutes.

But they didn't help me, and I got down, and it taught me a super valuable lesson.

Even though I don't have any arms,

that I can still do everything that everybody else can do.

I just have to try.

And if it wasn't for all that kind of stuff,

I never would have tried to ride a bull, and I did, right?

And that's where I got my first concussion.

But if they were way more strict, I wouldn't have done that.

Representing the United States of America, it is Matt Stutzman.

We did a brain scan on my brain once,

and they realized that the average person's brain,

that operates the feet, is like the size of a pea,

and mine is probably just a little shy of a baseball.

I feel like that was my gift.

I was blessed with the ability to use my feet like hands.

They made out the Olympic Village was more like a Club 18-30.

What was it like in the Paralympian Village?

Did you get your blade over much?

I can't answer these questions.

- Come on! - You never shagged a single person there?

Jonathan Peacock from Shepreth in Cambridgeshire

had yet another operation on his leg a few weeks ago.

In 2011, any interview I did,

pretty much the first question was, "How did you lose your leg?"

In the months leading up to London and constantly after London,

it was all about the sport.

And there was a huge shift from story to sport,

and that was incredible for me to see.

I was never gonna do anything other than 100.

Probably too lazy to run further, more than anything else.

Yeah, 100 meters suits me perfectly.

And now a world superstar,

in Oscar Pistorius, the most famous Paralympian of all time,

up against the world record holder from Great Britain, Jonnie Peacock.

The names in this race are huge.

I'll be happy with a medal.

There's Pistorius.

Before the race, I remember Oscar came up to me,

and he goes,�"Do you mind if I just say a prayer for you?"

And he just grabbed my hand, and he was just like,

pray to God that he hoped that I could go and do my thing.

And basically, he said, "Look, this is yours."

I really looked up to him

for all that he'd done for Paralympic sport,

and obviously, at the time, he was my idol.

Oscar was the face of the Games.

This is the cheer for Pistorius.

I was like, if I can get a little cheer compared to Oscar, I'll be really happy.

And here's Peacock.

I could not believe it.

I started hearing my name being chanted, which is just absurd.

Peacock! Peacock! Peacock!

Gentlemen, stand up, please.

This doesn't happen in athletics. It's meant to be silence.

So I'm just, like, telling everyone to just be quiet.

Peacock's asking them to be quiet.

He wants silence, and the crowd just need to listen.

Next thing I know...

we're in the blocks.

Once again, quiet for the start, please.

Extraordinary tension around this stadium.

Set.

I don't really remember anythingbefore 60 meters.

It's what we train for.

When that gun goes off in the race, you just do it without thinking.

And at that point, I was in the lead.

But the issue is, I suddenly get focused on the wrong things.

All I thought was, "Oscar's gonna be coming past me in a minute."

Because in every previous Paralympic finals,

Oscar kept just pip single leg on the line,

by the tiniest of margins.

I just absolutely shit my pants.

I'm just getting so tense,

just... just trying to fight to get to that finish line.

The start vital, and Peacock gets a good one. He's ahead of Pistorius.

Browne tries to go with him! Peacock's in front!

Pistorius starting to recover.

Peacock takes the gold!

And I remember crossing the line

and thinking, "Oh, my God, I've just won."

Then I finally see my name come up first, and I couldn't believe it.

I've heard this described

as the biggest night of sport in Paralympic history.

- Do you think that's right, Oscar? - No doubt.

Shows how the sport has grown.

Jonnie Peacock was running,

and there were 80,000 people in the Olympic Stadium.

And they weren't shouting and clapping and cheering

because they were seeing disabled people.

They were shouting because they were seeing a great sporting event.

And that just brought it home to me, what the Paralympics mean.

My father did start something quite amazing.

And I am very, very proud of him.

He was a neurosurgeon and neurologist,

and he was reckoned to be the next top man in Germany.

He was in his 30s, building up his career

and bringing two children into the world.

Suddenly, it was all taken away.

Berlin's great day dawns with the arrival of the Olympic flame

at the end of its 2,000 mile journey from Greece.

Hitler came to power,

and he immediately said all Jewish academics

and teachers and scientists and doctors

could no longer work in normal hospitals or universities.

So he lost his job, just like that, because he was a Jew.

He came to Breslau and became head of the Jewish hospital there,

'cause he was allowed to work in a Jewish hospital.

On the 9th of November, I took my car and went to the synagogue.

And there, the whole thing was surrounded by hundreds of people, burning,

and SS men playing football with prayer books.

I stood there and realized that my tears were running down.

But I became quite determined to help persecuted people.

Kristallnacht, where a lot of Jews were beaten up,

about 60 men came to the hospital,

and my father had said, "You must admit everybody who comes in."

In my position, I could help people.

Whether Christian or Jewish, it didn't matter.

Help them to disappear under the nose of the Gestapo.

And the next day, the Gestapo called and said,

"You must come to the hospital immediately."

And my mother said to my father, "Take your boots and your overcoat,"

because she thought he would be taken to the concentration camp.

I went to the hospital

and there were three SS officers sitting there.

"Sixty-four people were admitted. How can you explain this?"

I discussed every case,

and of course I invented all sorts of the diagnoses, you see.

Out of the 64 people, I saved 60.

I remember crossing into France

and my mother crying,

and that made a big impression on me.

She was leaving her family and she knew what might happen.

It was raining when we got to England.

It was all new and the language was different.

I became quite frightened.

There was a big queue of refugees coming, 'cause we were refugees.

In came the immigration officer and said,

"Who are the little children in the background?"

And my wife said, "Ours."

"Will you please come first? Children shouldn't stay in a draft."

Now this knocked us both out for six.

After all we had been through in Germany,

that simple man saying, "Children shouldn't stay in a draft."

Then my confidence in humanity came up like this,

and it has never wavered.

We'll find out which city will follow London

to stage the 2016 Games.

I would like to thank the four candidate cities

for their excellent bids.

Madrid! Madrid!

- Rio de Janeiro! - Brazil!

There can, however, only be one winner.

Here we go.

I have the honor to announce

that the games of the 31st Olympiad are awarded to the city of...

Rio de Janeiro.

Wait a minute.

Chicago is out?

It was magical, you know. It was like going to the nirvana.

We were just shouting and hugging each other and crying.

Then you realize you are hugging Pele.

Well, we were in a different dimension.

When we bid for the Olympics and the Paralympics,

there was this excitement about the Paralympic Games

and we were, I would say, a strong element of the bid.

And I was born in Rio, so to me it was a dream come true.

Andrew absolutely transformed Brazil as a major Paralympic nation.

I had this dream of making

the Brazilian Paralympic Committee

one of the most important sport organizations in my own country.

Rio de Janeiro is to be the first Latin-American city

to host the Olympic Games.

After London, the expectations of the world, the media,

the sponsors, they were very high.

We couldn't fail.

Rio de Janeiro, I was dreaming about it.

I realized that my dream could be possible.

I completely fell in love with fencing when I was five years old.

I think I was in the national rankings for, like, six years.

I was quite good.

When I was 11 years old, I was at the gym, a fencing gym, of course.

I just felt like a really, really bad headache.

I went home, and I had this very big bruise on my head.

So my mum asked me, "Did you fence without the mask?"

And I was like, "Mum, of course I didn't,"

because I was kind of crazy when I was young.

I was so lucky because 97% of people die in the first two hours.

The name of the disease in general is meningitis.

"Meningites"? Meningitis.

I don't remember from then on, because I was in a coma.

It's like you implode from the inside.

A part of my body was trying to kill me.

It was like a kind of match.

I have to fence to win against my disease.

The really difficult thing was not for me. It was for my parents, for my family.

Every night they went home

because they couldn't stay at the hospital with me.

They'd just say, "Bye."

You don't know if it's like "arrivederci."

Like, you know, in Italy we say, "See you soon,"

or it's like, "Bye," and that's it.

And then, a few days after, they amputated my arms.

They told me that, with the amputation of the arm, the disease is finished.

Everything is okay, so don't worry.

But then the disease appeared again.

"What do you wanna do? We can amputate her legs."

My parents were so scared, and I took the decision for them.

If there is 1% of possibility to live, let's amputate the legs.

How can you live a life without legs and arms?

Before my disease, we have not seen someone without legs,

so someone with a wheelchair. For me, a wheelchair was for old people.

I was 11 years old. I was good at school. I was an athlete.

Why does this disease have to happen to me?

There are a lot of bad guys in prison.

Give them this... This really bad situation.

I had never done something really bad in my life. Why to me?

But then, if you go ahead thinking every day,

"Why to me?" you will never go anywhere.

There's not really an answer, there's no reason, there's no nothing.

So, it just happened, you know. Shit happens.

The funny thing is that you are born again.

You just need to learn, step-by-step, everything.

Walking, eating, brushing your teeth, everything is a new thing,

because you forgot every movement.

The most important thing was to go back to fencing.

I just need to smell my old smell of the fencing gym.

I love the fragrance, you know?

It's a kind of perfume and you just love it, even if it's a bad, bad smell.

So, I went there and I saw this wheelchair fencing, I was like,

"Guys, what is this? That's not fencing."

"This is something for disabled. I don't wanna do something for disabled."

My father used the tape to put the foil on my hand,

and then I began fencing and just fell in love again.

Your mind has to be clear and prepared for everything.

The thing that I really love is that you can't be scared

in order to win, and I love winning.

You see the world in another way when you have the mask on.

My favorite world is with the mask on.

I was lucky to live my favorite moment in my life two times.

When I was younger, my old dream was the Olympic Games.

With the disease and all, I completely forgot about it.

But then, when I went back to fencing,

I realized that maybe my dream was not trashed.

My father said, "I dream of the time

when disabled people will take part in the Olympic Games."

Everybody thought, "What a crazy idea."

In 1944, if you had a spinal cord injury, you didn't have much chance.

They were brought back to Britain in open-top coffins.

The�medical fraternity said, "Well, they're no good anymore."

They couldn't go back and fight, so pump them up with morphine,

then they die of infection within six months.

When they decided to open the Spinal Injuries Centre

at Stoke Mandeville, nobody wanted to do it,

because the patients died.

When they offered the job to my father, he had all sorts of ideas how to help.

He jumped at it.

And he did this extraordinary treatment of turning them every two hours,

and really, that stopped the bed sores, and they lived.

And because he didn't have any staff,

he stayed at the hospital and helped turn the patients every two hours.

He was never at home.

I knew that he was being a very good doctor

and doing something very special.

So, I'd have been dead, if this guy hadn't come along.

Paraplegia is not the end of the way.

It is the beginning of a new life.

Sir Ludwig, his main goal, which was so simple,

was to ensure that those individuals became taxpayers.

And this means to be a citizen.

It's not only about surviving.

It's about being a useful human being, be your friend, a member of your family,

be your husband, your wife, someone, you know, someone like everyone else.

It occurred to me that it would have been a serious omission

not to include sport in the rehabilitation of handicapped people.

That was probably one of the best thoughts I have ever had as a medical man.

The hook is the sport. There isn't anything else in the world

that can bring you back from the darkest places than sport.

When I saw how sport is accepted by the paralyzed,

it was logical to start a sports movement.

We had our first competition between paralyzed ex-servicemen, 16 only,

on the very day, of 29th July, 1948,

when the Olympic Games were opened in London.

They trained all the time

to get fitter, to get better, to be faster.

The movement just took off.

18 countries make a record entry for the International Para...

Twenty-two countries were represented at this year's...

Twenty-six countries took part in the Stoke Mandeville Games.

It just grew like topsy, really.

Rome was the first time they managed to have Paralympic Games.

A lot of people thought it was something to do with being paralyzed,

but Paralympic was parallel to the Olympic.

I think Guttmann was really smart

in realizing sport movement

will be a very important tool for challenging perceptions worldwide.

When it went to China, to Beijing,

that was another country where disabled people were never seen.

They were kept hidden away.

As I was disabled at a very young age,

my family never had high expectations for me.

They just wondered what I would do when I grew up,

how would I support myself?

The China Disabled Persons' Federation was recruiting athletes

for the 2008 Beijing Paralympics.

They came to my home and asked me if I was interested in sports.

I was born to a family that was not rich.

They had opened a door for me.

Beijing, we have the largest country in the world...

People's Republic of China.

...making an absolute commitment

to make the Paralympics the best that they could be

and use it to transform the lives of people with a disability.

Here we go, going head-to-head, the gold medal match.

Number three, Ryley Batt.

I think China surprised everyone. They did a really good job of the Paralympics.

We got to play in the final there against the United States of America

and there would have been 8,000-plus spectators in that final.

The first time I did hear about the Paralympics,

I didn't really want to watch people in wheelchairs.

They're my kryptonite.

I didn't want to get in a wheelchair. Didn't want anything to do with it.

USA!

When I was in Mum's tummy, she got ultrasounds done.

Nothing showed up. No disabilities showed up.

So when I entered the world, it was a huge shock for my family...

that I was missing legs and missing a few fingers on each hand.

You know, I've heard stories that my nan, who was the sweetest old thing,

didn't even know how to hold me.

She didn't know how to accept me,

and, you know, my mum and nan cried for many weeks,

not knowing what to do with me and what I was gonna be.

- Say, "G'day, camera." - Bike!

- Yeah. Yeah, bike. He says, "Bike." - Bike.

I don't know what it was about my pop.

He just wouldn't take no for an answer.

Now wave to Mummy.

- Give Mummy a wave. - He bought me a motorbike

when I was three and a half or four years old,

and my parents looked at him and said, "Why are you buying him this?"

"How's he going to ride it?"

That's a great bike you've got there, Ryley.

Right, away you go, Ryley.

The day I got on that quad bike was the best day of my life,

and I still do have memories of that day.

He just made me feel like a normal boy.

Look at that boy go.

I don't remember once thinking that,

"Oh, poor me, I'm disabled."

I didn't see myself as disabled or see myself that I had a disability.

You're like a monkey.

My mode of transport was a skateboard at the time.

I wanted to fit in with my friends and be cool.

I was in school, and I was away when we had to tick all the boxes,

what sport we wanted to play. I got stuck with wheelchair rugby. Um...

I did want to jump in that chair, but then I was too embarrassed to do it.

Another week went on, and I went for a swim.

Came back a few hours later, my skateboard had been stolen.

Don't know what clicked in my head, but I went,

"Maybe I should give this wheelchair rugby a go."

I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie.

When you're hitting someone head-on, it's like a small car crash.

It's hard, fast and not for the faint-hearted.

It's no surprise that wheelchair rugby is also known as murderball.

Ooh!

Wheelchair rugby suits me to a T, but in saying that,

my teenage years were probably my hardest times in my life.

I was fairly negative about who I was.

I didn't really want to go out into public

and I worried what people thought of me every day.

Probably eating too much and started putting on weight.

- Do you have a girlfriend? - No, I don't at the moment.

Just go out to parties and get different chicks, sometimes, so...

- Yeah? - Not often, yeah.

- Ryley, you talking it up? - Nah.

Beijing 2008, I was definitely playing on natural talent.

I was nowhere near as fit as I should have been.

We lost that final, and you feel like you've let another 11 players down.

Didn't like my disability, and it was a hard time.

Paralympic champion, the United States of America.

After the 2008 Beijing Paralympics,

people all over the country changed their attitude towards the disabled.

My life, and my family�s,

improved a lot after that.

Before the Paralympics, China had

a very low impression of people with an impairment.

But that's been the same in every country of the world.

It kind of happens even here, even in the UK, um,

you know, maybe a bit more subtly.

I was adopted in France.

It was as if I had landed on a new planet.

I was often told I was good for nothing.

I was just a dirty cripple...

uh, a negro...

It's...

It's, um...

I was little. I didn't really understand what was going on.

But when I told my parents about it...

I often struggle to understand

why people are so harsh with the differences of others.

Growing up in Australia,

I was like a prime candidate for bullying.

There was this kid,

and he saw that I had one leg, and he kept calling me "pirate,"

and I was just like...

The next time he called me pirate, I'd had enough,

so I took my prosthetic off

and I threw it across the room like a javelin,

and, um, it hit him.

That was my first day of high school. I never got bullied again.

My heart's still functioning.

My brain's still functioning.

And I'm here, and don't hold me back, 'cause I won't allow it.

Give us a chance and we'll show you what we can do.

And if not, we'll make our own chances.

I come from a rural area,

and I understand when things are hidden.

It was very weird.

Usually back in the rural areas,

they would take the children and they would put them away,

because the family thinks it's a curse or something, to have a disabled child.

There's some people that don't want to see them.

From the age of one to ten, I was stuck in a wheelchair.

You don't see what other people see.

It's like you don't see your future.

The charity, a non-profit organization

that helped me, you know, with my legs.

Hold here. This one or this one?

Okay, turn it.

I got my first pair of blades, the Cheetah blade.

It changed my life in many ways, you know.

Now I could come to people,

look them directly in the eye and greet them,

instead of looking at their stomach.

You feel the same level.

The moment I started moving around, I started loving that feeling.

Well done!

People always ask me, "Why can't you stand still?"

I don't think I want to stand still. I always want to move.

Every time when I get to run, it brings laughter to me.

There's nothing that can bother me.

The only thing that I can hear is the wind blowing through my ears.

I started thinking, "I want to do things."

"I want to be better. I want to change the world."

My coach said to me, "I see talent in you."

"We are going to Rio."

This had been the first time that we had

two very successful Games:

Beijing and London.

So expectations for Rio were immense.

In terms of organization, I think we are in the final adjustments.

You know, the construction part is underway, is on schedule.

We thought, "Wow, man, this is going to be amazing."

"We're really going to deliver something absolutely special."

But then we started to see a few bumps in the journey.

Here we will hold the best Paralympic Games in history,

not in terms of organization, but in human warmth...

The name of the committee was to be announced.

The official name

was Rio 2016 Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games.

Not for the Olympic and Paralympic.

So that left a question mark in my mind.

Why not have Paralympic as part of the official name?

I don't know, some of the most senior leaders there, they couldn't care less.

If you look at the history of the Paralympic movement,

there were times when our athletes were not treated with the proper dignity

and the proper respect.

In Atlanta, it was just a disaster.

The Olympic Organizing Committee

decided not to organize the Paralympics.

Athens, if you see the pictures,

the stands, they were not full of spectators.

The promotion, they had many issues.

I always say, "If it's easy, it's not Paralympic."

Russia has refused to host the disabled Olympics this year.

Professor Sir Ludwig Guttmann is upset

at the Russians' decision to keep the disabled out.

I felt rather bitter.

I understand that the Soviets don't admit to having disabled people,

and that was one of the reasons they said you couldn't go.

They are behind, at least 20 years behind us.

When the Soviet Union declined to stage

the Olympic Games for the handicapped,

a tradition which began in Rome in 1960 was broken.

But the Netherlands ensured the Games would take place.

When I arrived in Arnhem, I wasn't aware, really,

that Sir Ludwig died earlier that year in 1980.

Well, I think he was still fighting, to the very end.

I mean, he was working away.

He still turned the lights off every evening,

being the last person to leave,

and he was in full flight again with his work.

So, it was a good time for him to go.

I went to Arnhem, and... it... it was very poignant.

The first thing which happened was, there was a minute's silence... for him.

And hearing the minute's silence of all these people thinking about...

my dad was very emotional for me.

And there was a chap next to me with very severe cerebral palsy.

He couldn't speak, but he had a board in front of him,

and he pointed to various letters and said, "Why are you here?"

And I said, "Because Ludwig Guttmann is my father."

And he spelled out, with great difficulty, "He is a great man."

But the Games were a great success.

They were there because the Russians said they hadn't got any disabled.

But now, I think they have quite a few.

So, you've won 17 Paralympic medals, including seven gold.

You hold the world record in every track event.

Uh, 100 meter, 400 meter, 800 meter, 1,500 meter, 5,000 meter.

You're the first person ever to win all four of the world's major marathons

in one year, and you've done that three years in a row.

- Amazing. - Thank you.

So tell everybody where you're from, and your story,

'cause it's incredible. Where were you born?

I was born in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Being born with a disability in Russia in the '80s,

it was a struggle.

My birth mom could not take care of me financially.

I was put into Orphanage Number 13.

There's no fancy name. It's just Orphanage Number 13.

It was just, like, a simple life.

I didn't have a wheelchair.

The only way to get around was that I scooted around the floor,

using my hands as my legs.

I was the rebel there, and I was a very stubborn child.

I was never adopted until that sixth year when my mom walked in.

I owe her my life.

Before I knew it, I was on a plane to America.

So I didn't know the outside world.

My mom said that I was screaming, because it was the unknown,

I was leaving something that I'd known for so long, and then

entering a new world that I didn't know or speak the language.

Hi, there, hello!

- How old are you? - Six years old.

Coming to the US, my legs were atrophied behind my back,

so I think I had ten surgeries just to, like, straighten out my legs.

The doctors, they didn't really expect a life for me.

I wouldn't live very long,

that I wouldn't hold a job.

They thought very narrow.

I think the moment I sat in that racing chair,

I just... I don't know, I knew it was for me.

Bye.

It was something like I'd never felt before...

Tatyana!

...freedom and that I could go really fast.

I was so in the zone, I didn't really care about anything else.

Nothing was wrong in the world.

It just felt endless, you know. I could just go forever.

I train 120 miles per week.

Our training is almost identical to an able-bodied runner.

Watch this.

People believe that walking on my hands for the first six years

built the muscle mass in my arms and my back.

I remember in the beginning of the school year,

we were supposed to write down academic goals.

My last goal I wrote down was,

"Going to be in the Olympics in Athens in 2004."

Tatyana McFadden.

Come on, Tatyana!

No one thought I would make the team.

No one thought I would medal.

When I came back from the Games,

people didn't really know that the Paralympics happened.

I wanted to join the high school track team,

but I didn't have the right to run alongside of other runners,

when I was the only female wheelchair racer out there.

I didn't understand why I was being discriminated against.

Even coaches said I should have a club of my own kind

and that I really don't belong here. It was hurtful.

And I thought, "Okay, we're going to fight this."

So, we sued for no damages, so no money.

We sued for the right for people with disabilities

to participate in high school sports.

Disabilities are now being granted

equal access to school sports programs.

That mandate comes from the Obama administration.

I could run alongside of other runners.

For the first time in history, students with disabilities

will now be included on sports teams at their local school.

It was a hard thing to go through, but the law became federal,

called the Sports and Fitness Equity Law.

Some people call it Tatyana's Law.

When I found out that the Games were finally going to be happening in Russia,

how cool would it be to do something?

Many people are surprised we have the Paralympic Winter Games.

We have blind athletes, 100 kilometers per hour, downhill...

...trusting in their guide, through a radio system, to say,

"Left, right."

Super-G for the visually impaired underway.

I don't like to go down hills fast,

so, like downhill skiing was out of the picture.

I was like, "Cross-country skiing, perfect."

Training was probably the hardest thing I've ever done.

I was told by other coaches on the team that I should go back to my summer sport

and focus on training for Rio.

Tatyana McFadden, what an interesting story she is.

There was nothing greater

than seeing your family holding an American flag and a Russian flag,

and kind of being blended together at that moment.

McFadden still trying to hold them off.

Here comes Marthinsen down the inside, closest to the fans.

McFadden trying to hold her off.

And Marthinsen driving the shoulders into the poles.

What a great finish, stroke for stroke.

I think Marthinsen got there by 0.1 from McFadden.

What a finish.

Winning a silver medal and having my birth mom at the competition

was definitely the cherry on top.

Having that reunion and seeing her, I was so excited.

You could just see the relief on her face.

She lived such a hard life, always worrying how I'm doing every day.

I think when she saw me, it felt like she took 20 years off her life.

The Rio Olympics are just weeks away.

I'm not promising everything, you know,

I'm so young, there's no disadvantage.

You just have to do your best and everything shall come to you, yeah.

As a 14-year-old boy, I'm going to Rio. Whoop-whoop!

I was just so excited that I made it.

I spent four years training for Rio.

Yeah!

Four years.

You do have to sacrifice a lot in life:

friends' buck's parties, weddings, birthdays, all those kind of things.

Maybe this will be my only one Paralympic Games.

In five years, everything can change.

A few weeks prior to the opening of the Olympic Games,

I had a call from the Organizing Committee,

I said, "What's it about?" They said, "No, when you come here, we talk about it."

And then I said, "Mmm..."

That July 18th was an absolute key date.

There were three of us in there, in our side.

And basically what they said was, "It's about money."

"The Paralympics would be seriously affected."

"To be honest, we don't know what would be the level

that we would deliver the Paralympics."

"We may not deliver the Paralympics."

That was the five longest minutes of my life.

Fucking hell. There was no money.

What the hell? What is going on here?

Everybody knows you need money to run the Games.

They are not telling you, "We can do this, or we can do that."

They are telling you, "We cannot organize the Games."

We were in shock.

I knew Xavi by more than ten years.

It was the first time ever that I didn't see him react.

I couldn't, at that moment, see how we could fix it...

And that was scary.

And then, all of them left the room.

And I think we were there for five or ten minutes,

silent, not knowing what to say and where to start.

Athletes' chances of travelling to next month's Paralympics

are in a precarious state,

according to the president of the International Paralympic Committee.

Never before, in the 56-year history of the Paralympic Games,

have we faced circumstances like this.

There is growing concern tonight about the Paralympics.

They said that the Paralympics is gonna be�canceled

because there was no money.

The world wouldn't allow this to happen to the World Cup in Rio,

or the Olympic Games in Rio. I mean, this is a scandal.

For the entire month before Rio, I was crying.

What is going to happen? I was like...

I didn't know what to think at that time, to be honest. It was sort of overwhelming.

...that started off as a concern,

but is very quickly edging towards a crisis.

How bad is the cash crisis?

In one word, he said it's absolutely "calamitous."

It was revealed funding

that should have been set aside for the Paralympics in Rio

has already been spent on the Olympic Games instead.

Well, I'll be completely honest with you guys here, I got really angry.

I thought that was preposterous.

There's a set budget for the Paralympics and there's a set budget for the Olympics.

Why are you taking it from our pot?

You just feel like these people don't view the Paralympics as anything.

All the National Paralympic Committees were saying,

"Andrew, what is happening? Are the Games really happening or not?"

Paralympians don't have the time to worry about what doesn't work.

They just maximize what does.

And I can assure you that's what we are gonna do here.

Forget about these guys, the leadership, because they won't help.

We knew that we couldn't fail to the athletes.

And the three of us got at it.

You had Xavi reorganizing the resources that were available.

We took a white board. Is this measure possible?

No, the contract is signed. Everything is paid, gone.

Is this measure possible? Yes, but we need this. Let's go and do it.

And Philip was being Philip,

with the media and on the political level.

Andrew Parsons,

his role was to work with the Brazilian authorities.

I was trying to find money, so we went to the government.

Brazil's first female president Dilma Rousseff, has been suspended.

The president of Brazil was impeached at the time.

It's a recipe for disaster.

There was a lot of operational changes that we did,

but at the end of the day, it was all about the money.

And the money, it'll be next week, it'll be next week, it'll be next week.

We always talk and exchanged WhatsApps as things were progressing.

The efforts to save the Games

had to happen during the Olympics.

In that period that the Olympics is on, I was on staging camp in Alabama,

getting ready for our own Games.

I just kept on going with my preparation and just, fingers crossed,

hoped that it would all work out.

It was very difficult to focus.

So much stress, so much mental preparation.

I basically just didn't watch the news.

I didn't want to know about it. I was trying to stay in game mode.

We found some money.

Then a federal judge slapped an injunction on the government

that it could not transfer any of this money that they'd promised,

unless the Organizing Committee opened its books.

And of course, they didn't want to do that.

With the Games less than three weeks away, Rio now hangs by a thread.

And this is something I will never forget

because it was the federal government

and myself going to speak to a judge in Rio,

together with the attorney general of the city.

And basically, I told him... I told him, "Look,

if we don't get this money, we will not have the Paralympics."

"And in a country with millions, 24 million persons with disability,

what are we doing with the people?"

"We are telling the disabled people, 'No, look...

...you're not important. You know, you're not worth the effort.'"

Inside, I was terrified. These Games, if they don't happen,

we're done. We're done as a movement, as an organization.

We'd have really broken the cycle.

Confidences wouldn't have been there in the future.

It would be the extinguishing of that Paralympic flame.

And Xavi was saying, "We're dead."

He was really emotional.

It's difficult to explain,

because our belief that we are part of a much bigger picture.

Hmm, that this is a movement for good.

At the gym, I got a phone call

from the CEO of Swimming Australia.

I've never felt so much relief in my life.

You know, we're told that the Games were going to go ahead.

Of course, we were super excited,

and I was trying to hold all my emotions inside of my body.

I was, like, super polite like this.

"Okay, I'm ready. I'm going to do a workout now."

I just sit and cried again.

Then the good news, we've got the money.

Thank God.

We've come from nothing and we can put something on.

These Games are going ahead, come hell or high water.

Years of preparation has come down to this one journey.

Paralympics, when it happens every four years,

it is something almost magical.

It is a community, and we do support each other.

And the world sees that connection during those Games.

And it's a huge, powerful statement,

because there's all these people who have fought just to get there.

Your dream has come true.

You have arrived at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

Over in the distance is the Olympic Park.

Rio 2016 Paralympic Games just moments away.

As we move on to one of our highlight races,

the men's 800 meters T54 final.

Thirty-fifteen.

Ten.

Everything was just... a ghost town.

It was... It was shocking.

Bloody hell.

The Organizing Committee who'd lost our money, if you will,

or spent it, they hadn't sold any tickets.

Very few tickets sold, less than in any previous Games.

That was creating a bad environment.

Problems of money were important in this, but it was something in the behind,

why we are doing this if nobody is going to come to watch it anyway?

There's thousands of seats there that could change those people's lives.

Because don't forget, yes, lives are being changed on the track,

but lives are also being changed in the stands as well.

The final of the men's 200 meters, T42.

First major championship for Ntando Mahlangu.

Let's forget about the stadiums being packed.

Yes, it plays a big role. Yes, you want people to come and support.

But I'm representing a billion people. It's amazing.

It's actually a big thing to represent where I come from,

because I will never forget my roots.

So away they go. Mahlangu is slow out of the blocks.

I'm representing my people. I'm representing my tribe.

I'm representing the other tribes.

You are running for the taxi drivers that drive me to town,

people that make sure that we get bread in the rural areas.

I'm running for those people that play a role in my life.

Here comes Mahlangu for South Africa!

Whitehead's gonna get the gold! Mahlangu gets the silver.

Mahlangu's second, with a new African record.

Every, every athlete is dreaming of the gold medal.

Ntando Mahlangu.

But then when I got the silver, it was overwhelming.

I remember some people saying,

"Ah, but the ticket sales are low,"

and so I said, "Wait.

The people will come.

The Brazilian people will get behind these Games. They will not let us down."

All of a sudden, that Paralympic spirit happened.

The athletes took the center stage.

Ellie Cole has the gold in Paralympic record time.

It'll be an all-American race here.

And Tatyana McFadden gets her first gold in Rio!

A brilliant run from Peacock!

The ticket sales started picking up.

The people didn't know about the Paralympic tickets,

and once they did, "We'll have some of that."

It's going to be close between them. And here comes Van Rhijn!

Van Rhijn might have got there, and she has!

The absolute highest number of people

that went into the Olympic Park

was during the Paralympic Games, not the Olympics.

It was the sports, the parasports, that saved the day.

And the spectators, the people from Rio,

the Cariocas came to see it and they connected.

There was a moment in boccia...

In boccia, the athletes have a severe disability,

so they could stress if it's too cold, too warm,

the noise, surprise or something like that,

and the crowd was just, "Ahhh!" Again, like a football stadium.

And the officials were a bit concerned.

"Should we tell the crowd? Should we try to make them less noisy?"

And the athletes said, "We are loving it. That's what we always want in our life."

All the hard work paying off for Brazil,

and the moment that the team and captain, Antonio Leme, will never, ever forget.

There was a buzz around in Rio

that was just sort of electric.

The fans were loving the sports.

We were lucky enough, to be honest, in the final,

that I think they liked the Aussies more than the Americans

and cheered us on.

There is the undisputed best player in the world, Ryley Batt.

There was one team we wanted to beat�in the Paralympics

and that was the USA.

Looking at photos of Beijing really turned the tables for me.

That silver medal sat on my bedside table. I would look at it every morning,

and go, "No, that needs to be gold."

"Get yourself out of bed, and go be an athlete."

Everybody in position.

It's the opening tip.

And we're underway.

He's got power aplenty. He'll barge right through.

To be honest, when I lost all that weight, I started to accept my disability more.

He's lost it here.

Because I was more proud of who I was.

And we are level again.

Batt has opened up this right lane.

Here he comes again, the battering ram.

Ryley Batt makes it 58-57.

That could've been a gold medal ball.

They call a time-out.

My pop was a huge influence in my life,

and, you know, he always said to me, "Lead by example."

Don't look like that, talk to Poppy.

I wanted to win for him.

I wanted to play the best I can for my pop.

Very sad to see him go last year...

It gets me a bit emotional. Um...

But he'd be proud of who I am.

- Bye. - Bye.

Bye-bye, bye-bye.

Australia with the inbound inside of 3.6 seconds. It's up to Batt.

Batt will take it across the line, and it's over!

They will win the gold medal!

What a moment as they do it in extra time.

I love it because you've won with 11 of your best mates.

Whoo!

I believe that maybe Rio was even more important

to the Paralympic movement than London

because we were never as exposed as in Rio.

We were never that raw, you know. It was pure sport.

Goal!

A Paralympic athlete,

they are ready to create another new story through the sport.

You train for your entire life, in order to have that moment.

Rio was tough because I had this problem to do with my arm.

I couldn't fence the week before, and I was so depressed.

Everybody was fencing, everybody was getting better,

and then I was just there, sitting.

Rio, I was shooting the best I had shot in a long time,

and I knew I was gonna win.

Ten!

Whoo-hoo!

I remember shooting my last arrow,

and I had to hit a ten to win, nine to tie, eight I lose.

I had equipment malfunction and I lost.

And, like, that was heartbreaking for me.

Like, Rio and I aren't good friends, you know?

Um, and it took a while to recover from that one,

for sure, because of the dedication

and what you do to put in four hard years of time.

Welcome back to Carioca 3, and Paralympic wheelchair fencing.

Two days before the Paralympics, I start again fencing,

but I was fencing in such a bad way because I was so stressed.

My coach was, "You are doing great." I was like, "No!"

"Don't tell me that I'm doing great if I'm not doing great!"

"Fuck off! Just go away!"

It was really difficult for me.

If nobody believes in me, it's okay,

but if I don't believe in myself, that's a real problem.

Chinese, they dominated everything

for years, every competition.

They are so strong, and we don't know how is that possible?

In just a few minutes, we'll have a new Paralympic champion.

And now, the referee asks for the fencers to come en garde.

Hey!

Bebe! Bebe!

If she's celebrating like this after one point,

imagine if she makes it first to 15.

Hey! Hey!

Everything was perfect with one point and then the other point.

- Allez. - Hey!

Mamma mia! What am I even doing, you know?

Allez.

Well, don't forget that she is competing

now against the new �p�e champion here.

Allez.

A quick one, she's brought it up to just one point.

Physically, she's better than me,

because she has the hands,

or she has the legs, so she's much better than me.

Allez.

Hey!

She wants it so badly.

A point back, though.

So pumped.

Back up to five-point lead now for Vio.

Pr�tes. Allez.

Hey!

The Italian is feeling some discomfort.

Just caught with a flick hit, behind her mask, on the back of her head.

Look at that, you can just see the flick of Zhou,

went over the top of the mask and flipped down onto the skull.

She wants ice.

When I was really young and even now,

if I feel some pain, I just don't say anything.

I say, "It doesn't matter, it will go away."

So when I say it's pain, it's really, really pain.

She's smiling, but that looked incredibly painful.

Beatrice Vio wants it so badly,

and the Paralympic Games, they create heroes, they really do.

En garde.

Pr�tes. Allez.

Just one point away from the gold medal.

When you're winning, and you realize that's the 14th point,

you are there and say, "Okay, it's the last one."

And if the last is going the right position,

in the right way, you win.

And you realize it all, you realize all your life.

But if you don't put the last point, you will cry for your entire life.

Everybody waits on the edge of their seat.

Pr�tes. Allez.

The 19-year-old, from Venice in Italy,

just doesn't know what to do with herself.

The emotion's so raw.

When I went back to fencing, I said, "Okay, guys, I'm Bebe."

"I'm without the legs and the arms. I just wanna do fencing."

"It's impossible. You do fencing with these three fingers,

and then the wrist, so that's the part that you need,

that's the fencing,

and you don't have this part, so you cannot do fencing."

It was impossible, but everything is impossible at the beginning.

You just need to believe in yourself. Just go ahead, do whatever you want.

Brazil! Brazil! Brazil!

It's the closing ceremony for the Paralympics. Check it out!

We've proven, through Rio, that we've got a united movement.

Whenever the shit hits the fan,

then our movement's gonna come around and say,

"Hey, you're not doing this to us. We're gonna have our Games,

and we are gonna get our message out there,

and we are gonna help change society

and make this planet a better place to live on."

It is so much more than just winning medals.

Bebe Vio. Thank you, Bebe, for all the emotions you gave us.

Today, it's you who is making us fly.

Passengers, we'd like to inform you that today,

we have the honor of welcoming a golden medal winner

at 2016 Paralympic Games.

Bebe! Bebe! Bebe!

Your Olympic and Paralympic medalists!

We want to play a major role when it comes to human rights.

We are going back to where we started.

Sir Ludwig's vision has not really been completed,

because still, those that are referred to as being disabled

are not being encouraged,

or not being accepted back into the society at large.

What Sir Ludwig was trying to do back then is needed more now than it's ever been.

People feel sorry for me. Why? Because of a perception.

They go, Aw, he's not got a leg. I should feel sorry for him."

My disability is my strength.

I'm going to die this way.

My leg is not going to grow back.

I am not a lizard.

Everybody has a superpower

that they find out at some point in their lives.

You just need to accept the situation in which you are.

And discover how beautiful it is.

Subtitles Diego Moraes(oakislandtk) www.opensubtitles.org