US Secretary of State John Kerry goes Paralympic in Colombia

John Kerry visited Bogota’s high performance centre for para-sport and relayed how important the Paralympic Movement is. 16 Aug 2013

John Kerry takes part in the "Lend Your Leg" programme in Bogota, Colombia.

By IPC

For a country like Colombia, para-sports present a positive way to empower former war heroes with a way to rehabilitate and inspire a new generation ready for peace.

During his recent visit to Colombia, US Secretary of State John Kerry took time to learn about the Paralympic Movement.

Kerry visited the high performance centre in Bogota, where he had the opportunity to experience sitting volleyball, para-cycling and wheelchair rugby. He event played sitting volleyball with Colombia’s national team.

Andrés Botero, the Minister of Sports, and Juan Pablo Salazar, President of the Colombian Paralympic Committee, hosted Kerry’s visit showing him the government’s commitment to para-sport.

Kerry also joined the global “Lend Your Leg” campaign by rolling up his pant leg as a symbol of solidarity with the hundreds of landmine victims that Colombia still has each year.

For a country like Colombia, para-sports present a positive way to empower former war heroes with a way to rehabilitate and inspire a new generation ready for peace.

In the speech Kerry gave to those present, he mentioned the importance of sport in inspiring people with an impairment to achieve their dreams:

“It's a great pleasure for me to meet with all of the teams here. I myself am a veteran. I fought in Vietnam. So for many years I’ve been involved with programmes in America to work to try to make sports part of the reentry into life and part of an awareness for people about possibilities after injuries.

“And what I’ve learned is there are no limits, everything is possible. And you can be an amazing inspiration to so many people about how they can deal with either an accident or one of the things that happens in life that people think is somehow a setback, but people can turn it into something very positive and be an inspiration to millions of people.

“The United States is very happy to be supportive of this programme. And I understand that a lot of these chairs came from our support and I’m delighted, though I’m a little bit surprised to see how hard you guys bump into each other. That’s a tough sport, but I congratulate you and I really want to thank you for your service, for what you have done for your country, for your people, and what you continue to do even now. And we will do everything possible that we can do to try to be helpful to support this programme and other programs and ultimately to try to help bring peace in Colombia.”