More than 300 athletes will take part in the first edition of the Parasport Games Romania, a multisport competition bringing together 10 disciplines and due to be held at seven sports venues in Bucharest from September 1 to 5, President of the Romanian Paralympic Committee Eduard Novak announced at a press conference on Wednesday.

'September 1 is the Official National Paralympic Sport Day, a very important day for us and for the entire Paralympic community in Romania. We wanted the first edition of the Parasport Games Romania to mark and celebrate this day through what represents us best: sport, competition and performance. We want this period to become an important annual moment for Romanian Paralympic sport. A moment to talk about athletes, our champions and performance, but also about people with disabilities who have not yet discovered sport and the opportunities it can offer. We want September 1 to become a day known and recognised in Romania as a celebration of Paralympic sport, performance and inclusion. The fact that this year we are celebrating it together with the first edition of the Parasport Games Romania makes it even more significant for us. Around 300 athletes are taking part in this event, of whom only six to eight have had the opportunity to compete at the Paralympic Games, and I believe this is a very small number. Another reason why we created these Games is to encourage and motivate athletes to experience the atmosphere of the Paralympic Games, to want to train and to become Paralympic athletes,' he said.

The Parasport Games Romania are structured as a multisport competition and bring together the National Championships in 10 disciplines, eight of which are Paralympic sports. The programme includes para table tennis, para swimming, para athletics, para powerlifting, 3x3 wheelchair basketball, para archery, adapted judo, wheelchair tennis, para climbing and para canoe.

The 2026 Parasport Games competitions will be held at seven sports venues in Bucharest: the Iolanda Balas Soter Stadium, the National Tennis Centre, CS Olimpia Bucharest, the Basketball Arena, the Lia Manoliu National Sports Complex, Vertical Spirit and Alexandru Ioan Cuza Park (IOR).

Novak said Paralympic sport had for a long time been viewed in Romania primarily as a social cause rather than as high-performance sport.

'Where did the idea for the Parasport Games Romania come from? First of all, from my personal experience. As a Paralympic athlete who has competed at the Paralympic Games six times, I often felt that Romania was not represented at its true potential in Paralympic sport. I went to the Paralympic Games and saw countries comparable to Romania arriving with delegations of 50, 60 or even 80 athletes, while our delegations were very small. And I asked myself many times why. Why don't we have more athletes? Why don't we discover more people with potential? Why can't we guide them towards sport and then towards high performance? There are certainly several causes. One of them has been the way Paralympic sport has been organised and represented over time. For too long in Romania, Paralympic sport was viewed primarily as a social cause and less as what it really is: high-performance sport. I believe we need to fundamentally change this mentality. A Paralympic athlete is, first and foremost, an athlete. They train, work, compete, win, lose and represent Romania, just like any other high-performance athlete. We must not build two parallel sporting worlds. We need to build one Romanian sporting system in which Olympic and Paralympic sport develop together, according to the same standards of professionalism, respect and performance,' he said.

The cost of organising the Parasport Games is estimated at around 300,000 euros, half of which is covered by the Romanian Paralympic Committee.

Eduard Novak also highlighted the lack of sports infrastructure adapted to Paralympic sport in Romania.

'The biggest challenge to the development of Paralympic sport is this. A young person with a disability who decides they want to do sport faces three barriers from the outset: whether they can leave home, how they can reach the sports venue and whether the venue is accessible. So, at least three barriers. Our sports facilities for individual sports are indeed very old. Almost nothing has been built in the past 20 years. Fortunately, we have found several sports facilities in Bucharest where we can carry out our activities. They are not in the best condition, with some dating back to the 1960s, but we are making efforts to bring activity and life back to these facilities. Through this competition, we are trying to raise awareness among the authorities so that, in the future, all sports facilities that are built will be accessible to people with disabilities,' Eduard Novak added. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Marius Tone; EN - writing by: Simona Iacob)