City Council backs USOC Paralympics club

Abby Farrell is a happy, active girl who likes playing golf and doing gymnastics when she's not skiing or swimming.

For her mother, Michelle, it's a load. Frequent trips to Denver and other destinations across the state are common by the 9-year-old who uses a wheelchair because of spina bifida, a developmental birth defect.

That's about to change.

The Colorado Springs City Council unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday approving an agreement with the U.S. Olympic Committee to implement a sports club for locals with disabilities.

When Paralympic Sport-Colorado Springs launches next year, youths and adults with disabilities, including wounded Fort Carson soldiers, will have an outlet to play organized sports.

"It's all about opportunity," said Michelle Farrell, a former Olympic gymnast. "If the opportunity is there, kids can have that as a choice. Right now, they don't."

The club, believed to be one of about a dozen nationwide, should offer a wide range of sports. Immediate possibilities are basketball, sled hockey, volleyball and wrestling at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and other area sites.

Its initial funding will come from the city of Colorado Springs, pending approval from City Council, and from U.S. Paralympics, a division of the USOC, said Paul Butcher, director of the city's parks, recreation and cultural services department.

In future years, Butcher envisions city and USOC funding coupled with sponsorships, potentially attractive since there are 21 million physically disabled Americans and the club has the right to use the star logo of U.S. Paralympics. "It's new territory for us," Butcher said.

Maj. Scott Trapman, medical director of the 651-person Fort Carson warrior transition unit that helps wounded soldiers readapt to military service and civilian life, called Paralympic Sport a therapeutic resource.

"They're not just healing from their injuries," Trapman said. "They're also coming to the realization that this has happened. Without programs like this, it may be that it takes longer for them to realize that there's a world out there and that they're part of it."

Born without a left hand and forearm, Colorado Springs cyclist Greta Neimanas, a 2008 paralympian, made friends through a similar Chicago program.

"You have all these friends that are just like you," she said. "You have more in common than being in a wheelchair. You've got the same qualities and same interests - people you wouldn't normally meet walking down the street or out at a club or a bar."

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0256 or brian.gomez@gazette.com. Check out our Olympics blog at gazetteolympics.freedomblogging.com