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* Paralympics biggest in event’s history
* “Look up at the stars,” Hawking says
* 164 nations represented, 4,280 athletes participate
* “Nothing to be ashamed about” says Pistorius
By Tom Pilcher
LONDON, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Wheelchair-bound physicist
Stephen Hawking challenged athletes to “look to the stars” on
Wednesday as he helped open a record-setting Paralympics Games
that will run for 11 days in near sold-out venues.
Close on the heels of the hard-act-to-follow London 2012
Olympics, thousands of dancers and stunning fireworks added to
the good cheer on the opening night for an audience of 80,000.
Hawking, diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of
21 and told in 1963 he had two years to live, began the ceremony
by reading from the stage.
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