{"id":14037,"date":"2012-08-30T03:25:28","date_gmt":"2012-08-30T01:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/08\/paralympics-hawking-pistorius-open-londons-paralympics\/"},"modified":"2012-08-30T03:25:28","modified_gmt":"2012-08-30T01:25:28","slug":"paralympics-hawking-pistorius-open-londons-paralympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/paralympics-hawking-pistorius-open-londons-paralympics\/","title":{"rendered":"Paralympics-Hawking, Pistorius open London&#8217;s Paralympics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Paralympics biggest in event&#8217;s history<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* &#8220;Look up at the stars,&#8221; Hawking says<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* 160 nations represented, 4,280 athletes participate<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Tom Pilcher<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>LONDON, Aug 29 (Reuters) &#8211; Wheelchair-bound physicist<br \/>\nStephen Hawking and South Africa&#8217;s &#8216;Blade Runner&#8217; Oscar<br \/>\nPistorius were among the luminaries on hand for the opening on<br \/>\nWednesday night of the biggest Paralympics in the 11-day<br \/>\ncompetition&#8217;s history.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Hard on the heels of the hard-act-to-follow London 2012<br \/>\nOlympics, the Paralympics got off to a rousing start with<br \/>\ndancers, fireworks and near sold-out ticket sales for<br \/>\ncompetitions to be held in the same Olympics park venues.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Hawking, diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of<br \/>\n21 and told in 1963 he had two years to live, began the ceremony<br \/>\nby reading from the stage.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Be<br \/>\ncurious,&#8221; Hawking said from his wheelchair, speaking through his<br \/>\nfamous computerised voice system for communication.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The London Paralympics will host the highest number of<br \/>\nathletes since their official birth in 1960 at the Rome Games,<br \/>\nwith 4,280 athletes representing over 160 nations compared to<br \/>\n400 participants from 23 countries in the Italian capital.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Paralympics biggest in event&#8217;s history * &#8220;Look up at the stars,&#8221; Hawking says * 160 nations represented, 4,280 athletes participate By Tom Pilcher LONDON, Aug 29 (Reuters) &#8211; Wheelchair-bound physicist Stephen Hawking and South Africa&#8217;s &#8216;Blade Runner&#8217; Oscar Pistorius were among the luminaries on hand for the opening on Wednesday night of the biggest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-14037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}