Welcome to the fastest-growing event in world sport, a multi-sport competition between athletes of extraordinary talent, courage and determination who will hold a cumulative TV audience of four billion people across the globe spellbound this summer when they perform in Rio de Janeiro.Time to marvel once again, then, at the wonders of the Paralympic Games.It is hard to credit that it was only three generations ago in 1948 that this burgeoning phenomenon all started with just 14 men and two women shooting arrows at a target from a wheelchair, cheered on only by a small bunch of enthusiastic spectators and quite invisible to the public beyond the English hospital grounds where the quaint fete took place.Yet when it rolls up in Brazil this summer, the event which had begun as those 1948 Stoke Mandeville Games, a novel competition for injured ex-servicemen at a spinal injuries unit who had taken up wheelchair archery to boost their rehabilitation, will have mushroomed into a spectacular festival featuring 4,350 athletes in 22 different sports from more than 160 countries.No sports event on the planet has been transformed so completely, so hugely or so swiftly. None, too, is still evolving as quickly to the point where officials of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) believe their showpiece could eventually overtake the football World Cup as the worlds second-biggest sporting event in terms of ticket sales behind only the Olympics.Talk about humble, primitive beginnings. In 1960, when the first Paralympics were held in Rome, Britains first-ever gold medallist Margaret Maughan still smiles at the memory of the almost comical operation needed just to get the 70-strong team hoisted up to the aircraft doors in a cage on a fork-lift truck to fly them to their venue.Once in Italy, Roman soldiers then had to carry athletes over their shoulders just to get them to their rooms, so ill-equipped was the Games to house the athletes. As for Margaret, she didnt even know she had won her archery competition because nobody had told her her scores and she only discovered the news when officials came looking for her and had to carry her and her hefty wheelchair off the coach to the medal ceremony!It all seems an unreal world away from the slick spectacular planned for 2016, which will showcase state-of-the-art facilities, see full-time athletes taking advantage of space age-designed equipment like £2,000 lightweight racing wheelchairs and watch a standard of record-breaking sport that would have seemed inconceivable half-a-century ago.We know Rio 2016 will be the most widely broadcast Paralympics in history, enthuses Sir Philip Craven, the President of the IPC, noting that between 120 and 150 nations will screen the event this year compared to 100 in the last edition in London 2012. For the first time, America will be on board for major coverage too.This explosion of interest, believes Craven, a former Paralympian himself in three different sports, is down to the dramatically improving performances of para-athletes, the majority of whom now benefit from high-performance training programmes on a par with their Olympic counterparts.To give you one example, he says, at the Atlanta 96 Paralympic Games, the mens 100 metres T44 for below-knee leg amputees was won in a world record 11.36 seconds. At Rio 2016, the US world champion Richard Browne is fully confident he can lower his own world record of 10.61 seconds to below 10.5.To knock nearly one second off a 100m world record in 20 years is a staggering achievement and highlights that para-athletes are getting faster, stronger and more agile all the time. Indeed, there are those who are firm believers that in 25 years the fastest man in the world could well be a Paralympian.And with the stellar performances comes the making of stars. One survey showed that less than one per cent of the British population could name a Paralympian before the 2012 Games whereas afterwards 31 per cent of the population could name at least five.Paralympians, like BP ambassadors, have a profile like never before. Athletes like Marlou van Rhijn, the Dutch sprinter now famed globally as the Blade Babe have become role models. Others, like Trinidadian swimmer Shanntol Ince have turned into national heroes. Some, like US wheelchair racing legend Tatyana McFadden have been social trailblazers as well as the rarest of sporting champions.All of which has led to the increasing realisation that no sporting event actually does more to break down walls of prejudice and discrimination and to change ill-informed, deep-rooted views in society regarding disability than this event.We are the worlds number one sporting event for driving social inclusion and thats a position we want to cement further in Rio, Craven explained recently in a speech in Brazil.For many Brazilians, Rio 2016 will be their first experience of Paralympic sport and will be uncertain of what to expect. I can promise you a life-changing experience that will make you re-evaluate what you believe is humanly possible.You will see sport like never before and witness some of the best athletic performances ever delivered.This is hard to dispute - and so is the reality that Paralympians are now constantly challenging and changing perceptions of sport and of disabilities.A third of Britons questioned after 2012 said theyd altered their attitude towards people with a disability because of the Games. Thats 20 million people at a stroke.Four years earlier, following the Beijing Games, a Chinese government official said the perception of a person with a disability had changed there from wretched street beggar to a brilliant footballer, shooter or long jumper. Theres been compelling evidence too that thousands of people with a disability have been able to find jobs more easily because Chinese employers had changed their outlook.Of course, it would be foolish to suggest that the Paralympics doesnt still have a long, hard road to travel before it helps eradicate the prejudice, ignorance and even hostility towards people with disabilities.There is something about this event which should give everyone hope. Craven thinks everything changed in 1992 in the Barcelona edition when a brilliant organising committee turned the Games into a marketable proposition for the first time, with free tickets being handed out and more than a million people flocking to watch the action.It was there that Dr Stephen Hawking, the great physicist and cosmologist who is paralysed from motor neurone disease, struck a cord by telling the world at the opening ceremony: Each one has within us the spark of fire, a creative touch.That energy burning within its incredible competitors is the fuel that makes these Games great, that is pushing the event into uncharted territory. Rio will be the biggest yet but Tokyo 2020, with the commercial backing and sponsorships already in place, will dwarf it further. The future of the Paralympian movement, says Craven, could be exhilarating.At the Olympic Games, the motto is citius, altius, fortius but while Paralympians too become ever faster, higher, stronger at each edition, there is something else that sets their Games apart. Its almost indefinable, a soaring feeling at the events heart which the Paralympics own motto Spirit in Motion somehow captures so well.It was as Craven told the world from the Birds Nest Stadium in Beijing at the start of the 2008 Games: Above all, when we come together we will be part of a creation of an almost touchable and definitely breathable, distinctive energy source which is at the heart of the Paralympic movement - and its what we call the Paralympic spirit.And once it gets hold, you can never let it go. It will last you a lifetime.Click here for more exclusive contentFake NFL Jerseys For Sale . Canada is now down to its 22-player limit, although but players wont be registered until Christmas Day. Changes could still be made as a result of a suspension or injury. Fake NFL Jerseys Cheap . "I wrote 36 on my sheet at the beginning of the game," the Cincinnati coach said, referring the yard line the ball would need to be snapped from. https://www.fakenfljerseys.com/ . In the lead up - which seemed to begin the moment Mike Geiger blew the whistle in Houston last Thursday night - the Impact rumour mill went into overdrive. The speculation went into meltdown mode, of the golden nugget variety. Fake NFL Jerseys Free Shipping . Luis Suarezs double powered Liverpool to a 4-0 victory over Fulham, and Southampton easily overcame Hull 4-1 to continue the south coast clubs impressive start to the season. Liverpool and Southampton sent Chelsea down to fourth place as the west London club was held to 2-2 at home. Fake NFL Jerseys Discount .C. -- After a listless first half, the Washington Wizards used a big third quarter run to beat the Charlotte Bobcats Bradley Beal scored 21 points and the Wizards used a 17-0 run in the third quarter to take control of what had been a close game and beat the Bobcats 97-83 on Tuesday night.Top Rank added a third 2016 Olympian to its stable on Monday, signing 19-year-old lightweight Teofimo Lopez Jr. to a multiyear promotional contract, promoter Bob Arum told ESPN.com.Terms of the agreement were not disclosed but Arum said the 5-foot-8 Lopez will make his professional debut in a four-round bout against an opponent to be determined on the Manny Pacquiao-Jessie Vargas undercard on Nov. 5 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.Lopez, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, lives in Davie, Florida, and came up through the USA Boxing amateur program, represented his parents home country of Honduras in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.Hes one of my homies, Arum joked, because they are both originally from Brooklyn. I think this kid is a real talent. The [matchmakers] are really high on him. Hes a real strong kid and has a really big future as a professional. He can fight. Hes a good fighter. If he wasnt we wouldnt have signed him, but its a shame he wasnt part of the U.S. Olympic team. Theres amateur boxing politics.Lopez earned a spot on the 2016 U.S. Olympic team by winning the U.S. Olympic trials in December. However, instead of that victory giving him a spot on the team, as it normally would, the International Boxing Association [AIBA], which oversees amateur boxing, for the first time used the winner of a different tournament to fill the slot. That turned out to be Carlos Balderas, who instead boxed in the Rio tournament.Lopez, who is trained by his father, Teofimo Lopez Sr., and managed by David McWater, instead opted to fight for his parents home country. In the Olympics, Lopez lost his opening bout, 3-0, to Sofiane Oumiha of France.Besides winning the 2015 Olympic trialss, Lopez, who was introduced to boxing at age six by his father, won a gold medal at 132 pounds at the 2015 National Golden Gloves Championships.dddddddddddd His amateur record was approximately 150-20. He also has ample experience sparring with quality professionals.Ive sparred with a lot of pros, Lopez said. Sometimes they would invite me to go to their training camps, sometimes they were here in my area [in Florida]. Ive been in training camp with Shawn Porter at the time he was fighting Keith Thurman, and Brad Solomon, helping them get ready for their fights, and they were both 20 pounds bigger than me.I also sparred with Guillermo Rigondeaux and Luke Campbell, the 2012 Olympic gold medalist. Ive sparred with many, many, many professionals since I was 13 years old. Im an entertainer -- got to entertain! My style -- Im technical, very technical. Im very smart when Im in the ring, like Albert Einstein. Im like a Sugar Ray [Leonard], Floyd Mayweather. Im a boxer, but if the knockout comes, it comes.Lopez is the third 2016 Rio Olympian Top Rank has signed so far. Arum has also signed Michael Conlan, a two-time Olympian from Ireland, who will fight as a junior featherweight, and lightweight gold medalist Robson Conceicao, a three-time Olympian, who thrilled the home fans in Rio by becoming the first Brazilian boxer in history to win an Olympic gold medal.Conceicaos pro debut will also be on the Pacquiao-Vargas card.Arum said he might not be done yet signing 2016 Olympians.We may do a deal with one or two others but were not actively looking, Arum said. ' ' '