With the Vancouver Paralympics entering their final day Sunday, Team Russia remains a hands down leader with 30 medals under its belt - 11 golds, 12 silvers and 7 bonzes, way ahead of the second-placed Germans with 12 gold, 5 silver and 6 bronze awards.
The last six sets of medals are up for grabs now, but no matter what the final tally, one thing is clear - physically handicapped athletes have taught everyone a good lesson of one's selfless devotion to sport and indestructible willpower...
Russia skier Irek Zaripov is the biggest winner of them all though taking home a whole four gold medals.
"I wanted to show everyone that you can overcome all obstacles on the way to victory... Just try hard and everything will be all right", Irek says.
Apart from his four Paralympicv golds, Irek Zaripov, along with swimmer Olesya Vladykina, the winner of the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing, has also been elected a honorary ambassador of the 2014 Paralympics in Sochi.
They were chosen because they are the best, says Sochi 2014 organizing committee president Dmitry Chernyshenko. We hope that their excellent performance will help change the way we treat physically challenged people...
Summing up the results of the Vancouver Games, the International Paralympic Committee's President Phil Craven said, among other things, that Russia, like no other country, was bending a gargantuan effort to promote the Paralympic movement. Hence the its consistently good Paralympic performance with 33 medals won at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, of them 13 golds, as many silver and 7 bonze awards. Russians traditionally excel in biathlon and ski racing and Mr. Craven is looking forward to equally and even more inspiring results in Sochi four years from now.
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