Lifter wants medal, sport for disabled Afghans

Disabled Afghans exercise on their wheelchairs on a basketball court at the Orthopedic Center of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Kabul, June 16, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

Wheelchair basketball

Afghanistan was late to discover sport for the disabled. The first Afghan athletes to go to the Paralympics, a pair of cyclists, went to Atlanta in 1996.

Rahimi participated in Beijing in 2008, but did not manage to take any medals home.

"In recent years we did very little for the disabled as far as sports is concerned. This was a mistake," said Alberto Cairo, an Italian physiotherapist in charge of seven Red Cross orthopaedic centres across Afghanistan.

Cairo spoke to Reuters at the newly built basketball court on the grounds of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), where eight Afghan wheelchair teams had just competed in their first national competition.

Their legs strapped tight so they do not slip out of their wheelchairs as they deftly whiz about, the players could hardly contain their excitement.

"Playing basketball is so much more than just playing a sport. It's an opening of their lives," their trainer of the last two months, American Jess Markt, said of the sport founded shortly after World War Two by disabled US veterans.

Ahmad Shaphur, the sprightly 18-year-old captain of the winning team from northern Faryab province, urged the government to pay attention to their plight.

"Some of us are thrown out of our homes because we can't work, we have no money and no way to get money," said Shaphur, who was unable to walk from birth. "If they would just give us a little attention, we would not accept defeat".

Disabled Afghans on wheelchairs play basketball at the Orthopedic Center of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Kabul, capital city of Afghanistan, June 16, 2012.[Photo/Agencies]

Markt, a professional wheelchair basketball player for the New York Rollin' Knicks, hopes Afghan teams can become good enough to compete internationally within two years.

He also hopes that in a decade the country could put in a bid for the Paralympics, where the sport is dominated by the United States, Canada, Australia and Britain.

Five years ago the IPC approached British charity Motivation, which provides low-cost wheelchairs to the disabled in developing countries, and asked them to produce a low-cost chair for basketball.

They came up with wheelchairs priced at $280 - a tenth of the cost of a custom-made one and plan to launch a low-cost racing chair at the Paralympics, said co-founder David Constantine.