Iraq’s Paralympics team

So far Iraq’s competitors in the Paralympics have won silver and bronze in men’s power lifting and a female power lifter had a strong showing too, she’s just one of two women to compete here. She started power lifting as an adult and she said while there are a lot of challenges to train in a Muslim country, her determination to overcome her disability was strong enough. For many athletes here, a shadow hangs over the celebration: many were wounded in conflict, not just the current one but also the First Gulf War and the Iran-Iraq War. the silver medalist in power lifting lost a brother to a car bomb and a close friend to an American sniper. He shudders as he mentally relives the moment. The translator says that specific incident caused the Paralympic team to outside of Iraq for safety reasons. But even before that he says there were challenges, and the windows of the team got blown out multiple times and they also lost multiple coaches and referees. The translator says he was no fan of Saddam but he’s also not a fan of the American presence. He and others on the Iraqi team say they have no hard feelings against ordinary Americans.