As if the Japanese had no other worries in Tokyo.

So now the Paralympics.

The number of residents of the metropolis infected with corona is increasing daily.

Messages from those who tested positively in the Paralympic convoy seem to confirm the position of critics: Does that have to be?

Flying in 4,400 athletes from all over the world increases the risk for the population, even if athletes, coaches, supervisors and officials like the participants in the Olympic Games before them have to be in a bubble.

There are no guarantees.

But also no reason to exaggerate the risk after the largely problem-free organized summer games with more than twice as many athletes.

You don't have to be an arithmetic expert to come to this conclusion when calculating risk and chance: Paralympics are indispensable.

Charged with a message

That's not good news yet.

Because it shows where we are in 2021.

Apparently still amazed at the beginning of a realization: It is unbelievable what people with a disability are able to achieve!

In Germany, this view may have more or less prevailed.

But it is only the beginning of what is needed.

To respect people, how imperfect they all may be, even without jumping to Olympus.

This is not sufficiently the case in Germany or Europe, not to mention the view in other countries or continents, where impairments are sometimes still regarded as a judgment of God and people are therefore excluded.

The Paralympics are charged with a message that radiates far beyond the individual's attempt to explore his or her limits and expand them.

Tokyo is also about more than gold and silver.

The socio-political importance of the Games forces the athletes not to fight only for themselves.

There is hardly an interview that goes by without asking about the broader context and expressing it in the answers.

The overarching declarations demanded by politics, functionaries and society sound like learned justification reactions.

They are still urgently needed because otherwise there would be hardly any support for Markus Rehm as a famous long jumper with his lower leg prosthesis.

Inclusion in his homeland is nowhere near as far as the German jumps.

Paralympics, if the competitions are noticed, have a particularly intense effect on people growing together, presumably at a break point.

It is no coincidence that the Japanese will keep the general public out of the stadiums, but will explicitly open the stands to school classes.

The children could see a deer who, if in good shape, is able to leave the youngest Olympic champion from Greece eight inches behind.

Regardless of the tiresome discussion of whether the feather below his knee will give him an advantage in a ridiculously tiny moment of his life, the German's movements are fascinating;

just like the skilful, strategic moves of the wheelchair basketball players or the high-speed players of short stature.

You don't have to have the big picture in your head to understand what is happening in Tokyo. Just a picture, a story of overcoming obstacles tells why Paralympics can initially be more important than the summer games.