Superhuman Day

Superhuman Day was the brainchild of the fantastic people at Channel 4, a British free to air television network that is dedicated to providing programming that is of distinctive and high quality.

To highlight the incredible athletes at the Summer Paralympic Games in 2016, Channel 4 took the place of the official broadcaster for the Paralympics for the second time, and immediately decided to start bringing these unsung heroes and champions of the great human achievements into the limelight.

It all started with their advertising campaign “We’re The Superhumans”, featuring 140 unique people with disabilities who are working to change society’s attitudes towards them. And, to be honest, people who have ‘bionic’ limbs or can use wheels for legs probably should be considered somehow beyond human!

The Paralympics have been running since 1948, although they weren’t called that then. This athletic event was originally put together to give World War II Veteran Patients with Spinal Injuries a chance to compete. At that time, the games were called the “1948 International Wheelchair games”.

But a few years later, in 1960, the Paralympics were officially established, and no longer simply open to WWII disbled veterans. In that event, 400 athletes from 23 countries competed, which quickly grew to 1600 athletes from 40 countries a few years later in 1976.

One of the most important and memorable events of the Paralympics occurred in 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. That year, the Paralympics were held immediately after the Olympic Summer Games, both in the same host city and using the same facilities.

How exciting for the Paralympics participants to know they were following in the footsteps of the Olympians who had competed in that same space just prior to their own events!

In 2001, the International Paralympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee cemented this practice as tradition, and so it has been continued ever since.