Inspiring ability of humans to raise game

Ireland’s crack team of Paralympic athletes have been rightly hailed as our most successful sports team ever.

They have become leading players in establishing beyond a doubt that those who are differently abled also excel at world-class sport. For the Irish team, 16 medals, half of which were gold, records broken, personal bests and national records rewritten speak for themselves.

And although I realise that disabled is the commonly used term, in light of these recent achievements perhaps that term simply doesn’t work any more. The dictionary describes disabled as “to make ineffective, unfit or incapable” none of which surely, can apply to the men and women from around the world who competed in the mighty 2012 Paralympics.