Fire within burns as games begin

By GREG ANSLEY

SYDNEY - New Zealand launched itself into the biggest Paralympics with a haka last night as Olympic Stadium burst into a blaze of colour and movement.

The Kiwi team, the largest to take part in a Paralympic Games, marched into the opening ceremony to the pounding rhythms of bands from the five continents.

In the stands, a capacity crowd of 87,000 roared as 4000 athletes from 128 countries entered the stadium.

The Paralympian flame was lit in the centre of the arena by Australian wheelchair athlete Louise Savage, followed by fireworks and the emergence of a vast torch.

And hovering above the ceremony, 18-year-old wheelchair racer Angie Ballard steered the world's smallest blimp with her arms as 6000 performers danced around the circuit in metalflake speed chairs.

On screens at each end of the stadium, Professor Stephen Hawking, the English mathematician and author of A Brief History of Time, who is severely disabled, sent a video message. The fire, he wrote, is in our hearts, in our minds, in our spirit - the fire is within.

This was the theme of the opening ceremony, performed as a rock opera that included wheelchair-bound 1970s rock singer Jeff St John and Melissa Ippolito, the 15-year-old counterpoint to last month's Olympics opening ceremony star Nikki Webster.

Ippolito - born with a hole in her heart - sang alone in the centre of the arena and later with Renee Geyer, Kylie Minogue, Taxiride, Vanessa Amorosi, Christine Anu and Yothu Yindi.

This was the start of a sporting contest eclipsed only by the Olympics. But instead of big-name athletes, these games have stars of a different kind, such as Cambodia's 11-man volleyball squad.

All but one has lost a limb to landmines, giving urgency to efforts to ban devices found in 68 countries.

Som Chork, shunned at home after losing a leg to a mine, said the games would help to show his countrymen what he could do.

He wanted to buy a motorcycle and set up a taxi business when he returned home.

The squad, formed because of the popularity of volleyball as a therapeutic sport for mine victims, was brought to Sydney by the Australian Government, a strong advocate of a global landmine ban.

Over the next 11 days more than 820,000 spectators will flock to the Paralympics, topping Atlanta's record in 1996 by 300,000 starts.

New Zealand's campaign will be opened by our first medal bid.

Collin Willis will shoot in the 10m standing air rifle competition, which will be decided on the day.

Willis is ranked world number two in the 10m prone air weapons class and won two silvers and a bronze at last years World Wheelchair Games in Christchurch.

At the Dunc Gray Velodrome, cyclists Mark Inglis and Paul Jesson will race in the mixed 1km time trial.

Inglis won gold in the road race at last years Southern Cross Games in Sydney and placed 12 in the road race and 9th in the time trial at the 1998 world disabled cycling championships at Colorado Springs in the United States.

Jesson set a world record in the 4000m individual pursuit and won gold in the time trial at the Colorado Springs championships.

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