Paralympics: Revamped Sydney says let the games begin again

By GREG ANSLEY

SYDNEY - This morning Sydney is gearing up to do it all over again.

With barely time to pant since the Olympics closing ceremony, the first of 15,000 volunteers were back on the job on Wednesday, welcoming an advance guard of 2000 athletes for the Paralympic Games.

Yesterday, as New Zealand's largest Paralympics team went to lunch at the Sydney Town Hall with former Wallabies captain Nick Farr-Jones, most of the remaining 5000 athletes and officials were settling into a Village modified for those with disabilities.

At Olympic Stadium, the final touches were being made for the Games opening on Tuesday - transforming the regalia from Olympic to Paralympic.

Transport officials were preparing for what they hope will be a repeat of the system's almost flawless Olympic performance.

This is no mere also-ran. The Sydney Paralympics is the second-biggest sporting event on the planet, eclipsing the Winter Olympics, the 1956 Melbourne Games, and the Commonwealth Games.

Ticket sales this week suggested initial estimates of 650,000 spectators would be well short of the mark.

If sales continues, more than one million may eventually pack Olympic Stadium and the other venues.

The Games will be broadcast on TV to more than 100 countries, with prime-time slots allocated throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States and for triple the airtime given to the Atlanta Games.

For the first time, the Games will also be broadcast live on the internet - the Paralympics are not subject to the web bans imposed on the Olympics.

And the demands on Sydney, although moderated from the Olympics, remain enormous.

More teams, and more athletes, have signed on for Sydney than for any previous Paralympics.

About 4000 athletes, with 3000 officials and support staff from 125 countries, will be competing - 22 more teams than Atlanta, and 42 more than Barcelona.

Athletes will compete in almost 20 sports - including archery, athletics, basketball, boccia, cycling, equestrian, fencing, goalball, judo, powerlifting, wheelchair rugby, sailing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, tennis and volleyball.

This was a fantastic response for the event, said the Sydney Paralympic Organising Committee sport and games operations general manager, Xavi Gonzalez.

The significant increase in teams over both the Atlanta and Barcelona Games reflected the Paralympic movement's strong growth.

Ticket sales confirm this.

Long queues have formed outside the main ticket office at Ultimo, and callers wanting prime-event tickets have overloaded the ticket hotline. The opening ceremony is sold out, and tickets for the closing are nearing the capacity of 87,000.

Some of the biggest crowd-pullers are sold out, including reserved seating for gold and bronze medal matches in men's and women's wheelchair basketball, men's powerlifting and swimming finals, and the women's sitting volleyball final.

Interest has been pumped by the flow-on effect of the Olympics' high - including large numbers of people who opted to miss the gargantuan Olympic crowds - and by high-impact promotion, including the use of parathletes in commercial TV ads.

Performances have been outstanding. Nigerian amputee Ajibola Adoyes' Paralympic record of 10.72s in the men's 100 metres, for example, was only 0.76s behind the comparable Olympic record set by British runner Linford Christie.

And there is the huge Australian appetite for gold, heightened by the nation's outstanding Olympic performance.

At the Atlanta Paralympics, Australia placed second to the United States in the medal tally - 42 gold, 37 silver and 27 bronze - and the nation is hungry for more.

Enthusiasm also is being stoked outside the stadium.

The torch is already on its way, nearing Sydney on a 13-day journey that began on October 5 in Canberra. By the time it arrives in Sydney for the opening ceremony, the torch will have been carried by 920 bearers and passed through more than 200 towns and cities.

The Paralympic Arts Festival - named Invincible Summer with performances from more than 20 countries - started this week and will run until the end of the month.

The festival includes free performances at Olympic Park - ranging from wheelchair acrobatics to Cuban drummers - as well as arts exhibitions, concerts at the Opera House and comedy, theatre and dance at the Seymour Theatre Centre.

And the city's transport system has been primed not only for a new crush of spectators - who will be mixing with full loads of commuters - but for the special needs of many of them.

Wheelchair access will be available on trains that will run 24 hours a day during the Games, and at five-to-10-minute intervals out to Olympic Stadium. Specially modified wheelchair-accessible buses will run to the stadium.

Free, accessible shuttle services will operate within Olympic Park and between several railway stations and other venues.