International Paralympic Day

Saturday, August 27 was International Paralympic Day (IPD) in Bonn. IPD is a public relations event that exposes the community to the Paralympic movement and it's sports.



There were about 40,000 people that came through the Marktplatz (city center square) to watch the events.

The events that took place throughout the day were:

Wheelchair Basketball

















Table Tennis
















Sitting Volleyball

Long Jump which included the 5 best Long Jumpers in the World.

It was a very exciting day for everyone. I worked at the Anti-Doping Booth with the German National Anti-Doping Agency which is the equivalent to where I used to work at the US Anti-Doping Agency. I really counldn't do much at the booth in regards to answering questions because most of the questions from people were in German. So, it made for a long day. The Anti-Doping booth was right next to the IPC Information booth. IPD also had a KinderOlympics where children could pick up a sheet of paper from the IPC booth and go to the different events and answer questions. If they got all the questions right (which everyone did), then the could bring their sheet of paper back and get "goodies". I helped out with that quite a bit too. You dont' have to say much to a child who knows they got all the questions right. I would usually smile, give 2 thumbs up and fill a bag up with candy and prizes.

As I have long known, but have only confirmed, a smile goes a long way.

-Betsy =)