WHILE the every move of competitors from other countries was being followed by their media and their fans at home, Bulgaria's team at the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens seemed consigned to invisibility.

By September 22, five days after the opening of the Games, Bulgaria's team had notched up no medals. They also had notched up very little coverage in the Bulgarian media, and could hardly be blamed if they felt, as they might, that their country was doing less than standing behind them. Their departure for Athens, with an official send-off led by Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg, was covered on national television. After that, should one scan the Bulgarian press for news of them, it seemed they had disappeared into an abyss. It seemed that the real impairments of sight and hearing was among their compatriots in the media. Certainly, it seems inappropriate on many levels to ignore the Paralympics - considering, among other things, they are the second largest sporting event in the world after the Olympics.

Following on the success of the Olympic Games, the opening ceremony of the Paralympics on September 18 was generally well-received. In place of the lake that was the centrepiece at the start of the Olympic opening ceremony, a giant olive tree was in place in the stadium as the focus of the Paralympic ceremony.

The tree was the focus for images of water, earth air and sun, during a presentation themed "the journey to the sun".

All the tickets for the opening ceremony were sold, and a crowd of 72 000 turned out to watch the about 4000 athletes from 136 countries participate in the parade.

Observers detected a different mood. Wrote Independent Newspapers' Kevin McCallum: "There is a more relaxed, human feel about the Paralympics that the hype of the Olympic Games sometimes managed to leave in its hectic wake during August".

For all that supposedly relaxed feel, competition was as intense, and soon all eyes turned to the race for top spot in the medals table.

By September 22, China was in the lead, followed by Great Britain, France, Australia, Ukraine, Germany and Spain. The United States, which pipped China in the Olympics in the medals stakes, was in eighth place, followed by Hong Kong and Canada. The state of play was not surprising, because experienced Paralympics-watchers noted as the Paralympics started that much could be expected of the traditional powerhouses, Spain, Britain and Germany, and it was equally predictable that China was seeking overall victory, in the way that it did weeks earlier at the Olympics.

Following on the doping scandals that wracked the Olympics, officials stepped up checks at the Paralympics. By September 22, more than 300 tests had been done, most of them negative.

But on that day, it was announced that two power-lifters from Azerbaijan had been banned for life after testing positive for banned steroids in out-of-competition tests.

Urine samples from Gunduz Ismayilov showed traces of stanazolol, while Sara Abbasova tested positive for nandrolone. They were the second doping offences for both athletes.

"We have conducted 335 tests so far during the Games and these are the first two to return positive," said International Paralympic Committee (IPC) spokesperson Miriam Wilkins. "It is the first time that the IPC has imposed a lifetime ban and that is because both athletes have offended before."

Ismayilov, who was due to compete in the men's 90kg category, had served a two-year ban after testing positive for metandienone and nandrolone at the 2000 Sydney Games.

Abbasova, a power-lifter in the women's 75kg class, failed a test for metandienone at the 2001 European power-lifting championships and was also banned for two years.

The only other detectable trace of scandal as the Paralympics got underway was when Greek newspaper Avriani published allegations, based on the claims of two former judges who were removed from the organisers audit committee in July, that chief Games organiser Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki and her associates had "plundered public finances". Responding that the newspaper report was "scurrilous and libellous" she said she would take court action against Avriani, "to safeguard the honour and respect due to me and to the work done by the staff and management of the organising committee".

On and off the field, there were highlights and disappointments for competitors.

By day two, China had started to accumulate its gold medals, with Chun Hua Li throwing 28.2 meters to break the world record and win gold in the women's discus for athletes with uncontrollable muscular spasms in one half of their body.

But in the category of disappointments, a discus thrower from Iran, Mokhtar Nourafsan, had his gold medal withdrawn after IPC officials ruled that he had been assigned to compete in the wrong category. In the Paralympics, athletes are classified according to type and degree of category, and the system of categories is known to be open to errors.

There was also bitter disappointment for South African table tennis player Rosabelle Riese, who is wheelchair-bound because of polio. On September 20, she tumbled while trying to get on to the team bus, and broke her leg. Riese, who works in Cape Town as a data auditor, is one of the more interesting Paralympics stories - she competed originally as an air pistol shottist, winning a bronze in Atlanta in 1996, before she switched to table tennis, making the singles quarter-finals in Sydney in 2000.

Among other human stories was that of Claire Priest, who was scheduled to compete for Britain on September 22 in an air rifle event. While under normal circumstances she might have expected unqualified support from her boyfriend, this was not reasonable to expect - he, Colin Willis, was competing in the same event for New Zealand, where the couple lives.

A heart-warmer was the announcement by Canadian senator Joyce Fairburn in Athens on September 18 that the Canadian government was to donate all the furniture it bought for use by its Olympics and Paralympics teams, to the Greek Society for the Protection and Rehabilitation of Disabled Children.



For information on the 2004 Games: www.paralympic.org