ADAPTED SPORT

We are a student group of Social Education degree of the Complutense University of Madrid. We have made an article about adapted sport. We visited two centers and in one of them, we did three interviews.

First, we went to the ‘Lesionado Medular Foundation' www.medular.org. In this foundation, the professionals work every day with the objective that people with spinal cord injury can get a specific rehabilitation that allows them to keep their physical conditions, their inclusion in society and their autonomy and personal safety.

This foundation stands out in sports, working in physical form and in teamwork. The pay five adapted sports:

• Table tennis: some of the agents of the Spanish selection of the table tennis come from this foundation. The rules are the same in the Paralympic table tennis and in the conventional table tennis, but depending on the injuries and capacities of the players, they can lean on the table to strike the ball. They group the players according to their injuries to avoid any kind of disadvantages.

• Quad-rugby: is a new Paralympic sport in Spain, the first team was created in October

of 2011. Inside this sport we can found another three sports: rugby, basketball and handball. They play in a basketball court, and each team have four different players. They have to pass or throw the ball every ten seconds, like in basketball, and it is considered a goal when the ball enters in the porter's lodge.

• Boccia: the boccia is a Paralympic sport similar to petanque. In this Foundation, is played by older people. At more professional level, the competition is classifying according to the levels of disability, but starting from the pint that the players of this sports are people with wheelchairs, with cerebral palsy or sever physical disability with, at least, three amputees. In this sport, they use a gutter, and if they can use it by theirselves, they play with a person who moves the gutter, although he always has his back to the place that needs to be thrown, so that the player himself will direct it.

• The stacking: is a new sport in Spain that consists in assemble and disassemble plastic glass in the less time possible.

It is a sport that have a lot of therapeutic advantages because sharpens memory and set laterality. This sport can be played by people who have capacity of take, stack and drop the gasses

• Electronic Darts: Deus an entertainment, it is a sport that is currently growing worldwide. The participation of people with spinal cord injury will depend on the level of injury they present.

As they can use their arms, they use a blowgun, fastened and moved by an instrument they wear on their chins.

José Manuel Jerónimo was proclaimed the champion of the electronic darts in the Madrid Community, competing between sixty-three people without disability, and belongs to the Lesionado Medular Foundation.

In the center, they showed us a video about the differences between people with reduced mobility and with those who do not.

The second visit we did was to the José Caballero Municipal Sport Center.

The wheelchair hockey is a teamwork sport, focused specially to people with a high level of motor disability.

This sport started at firsts of the seventy years when some schools of intellectual disability started to impart sport lessons. They decided to play hockey because they could reduce the weight of the ball and the stick.

The first competition was in Holland in the 1981 year, and the first competition between clubs was held in Munich at 1987, starting a tradition that is still maintained. In 2002 was created the Committee of Electric Wheelchair Hockey, it is the international organization that regulate this sport.

After conducting a research, we found evidence in which contrasting the aids from the state for this kind of sport, there is a big difference with respect to other European countries. For example, in Holland, the teams are subsidized by the state perceiving economic aids for the pay of the wheelchair and for take part in the competition. Conversely, in Spain, the players do not perceive economic aids, so they have to pay their own wheelchair by theirselves and the expenses that this sport entails.
❖ BYLAW:

The court will have twenty-six meters long and sixteen meters wide, although variations are allowed: the minimal measurements are twenty-four meters long and fourteen meters wide, and the maximum measures are the first ones that have been mentioned.

1. The ball: The ball has to be made of synthetic material, hollow, spherical and with hots.

2. The hand stick: the hand stick will not have rough edges, protruding elements or sharp areas. It is not allowed pin up the hand stick to the wheelchair. It is allowed only for one player, hold the hand stick to a part of his body if they are unable to hold it.

3. The t-stick: the t-stick has to be fastened in the front of the wheelchair. The blade and the fins will be made of synthetic material, and they cannot be transparent. The connections that attach the fins to the blade and the stick to the chair will be made of metal or aluminum. Each player usually has his own t-stick, made it with his conditions.

4. The wheelchair: All parts of the chair, except the wheels, must have a height that allows the ball to pass underneath. There should be no unnecessary and removable obstacles in the chair or under it. The maximum speed allowed is 16 km/h. It is allowed to play with protections around the chair to safeguard the player and the chair itself. At the international level is mandatory to have protections in the chair.

5. The team: each team is allowed to have the following members in the team area:
a. One team leader maximum
b. Two trainers maximum
c. Ten team assistants maximum
d. Ten players maximum

6. Players: each player has a score depending on his disability; if they have a sever disability and play with the t-stick, their score usually be 1, the score of the players that use the stick can be from 2 to 4. The maximum score that can be given to the player is 4, and the minimum 1. Each team will have one goalie and four players ready to start. One team can play the match with a maximum of eleven points in the field.

7. Match time: the match consists of two halves of twenty minutes with a half part of ten minutes.

a. Active chronometer: the timekeeper will set the chronometer up when the referee whistles the start of every half of the match and when the referee whistles a resumption or for extra time. The effective game is timed.

b. Stopped chronometer: the timekeeper will stop the clock every time the referee interrupts the match with a whistle, due to an infringement or at the end of every half or the extra time.

8. Driving the wheelchair: In case of a defective chair, the referee does not whistle. The next interruption a technical interruption will be authorized and attempt will be made to solve the defect.

9. The use of the stick: it is allowed the contact between the player's stick, only to play the ball correctly. It is not allowed the contact of the stick with the body of the players (personal contact)

ALCOBENDAS HOCKEY GROUP

We have done some interviews in one of the two teams of the Madrid Community, which is in Alcobendas. Now, we are going to show you a brief information about the activities they do in their trainings, the methodology and the age of the players.

The trainings are divided into three parts:

o The first half hour of the training, they do warm ups. For example: move the ball and throw to goal using the entire court.

o In the following hour, the practicing they do usually are more tactical, chair and ball handling.

o The half hour that remains they play a match. The tactical practicing is:

o Proving new methods of blocking the opponent.

o New plays having two sticks in the court. For example, how to synchronize when passing and having a player in the middle trying to remove the ball from the sticks.

o Attack plays with two sticks and two t-sticks since the time of attacking is different. The t-stick has to be attentive to the hand stick to block the opponent

and be able to score a goal.

o The do too, one-on-one exercises, specially for the person who handles the stick.
o Team characteristics:

▪ The team is mixed, both age and sex.

▪ The youngest player currently is eleven years old.

▪ The oldest player currently is thirty-eight years old.

o The name of the players:
▪ Alejandro: 11 years old

▪ Miguel: 11 years old

▪ Tomás: 15 years old

▪ Mikel: 18 years old

▪ Andrés: 20 years old

▪ Sara: 21 years old

▪ Álvaro: 22 years old

▪ Víctor: 22 years old

▪ Erick: 22 years old

▪ Raúl: 32 years old

▪ Alejandro: 35 years old

▪ Juanba: 38 years old.

❖ Main ideas we have concluded about the ALCOBENDAS HOCKEY GROUP:

o The wheelchair hockey is allowed to people who have a disability. The trainer prepares them for compete and they are helped to work as a team.

o All those who plays wheelchair hockey feels gratified and hockey stars.

Regardless of they use a wheelchair, they are able to do everything a person without disability can do. They take part in an elite sport.

o In this sport can take part in people with a high disability and they have to use a wheelchair day by day. The diseases that includes this sport are: muscular dystrophy, tetraplegia and cerebral palsy.
o Inside the players they have scores. The maximum punctuation of each time is

eleven points and there may also be three hands stick. The trainers have to work hard in tactics to compose the team and it does not leave the score.

o Ideally, each player has one adapted wheelchair to play hockey, and another one to use it in day to day. Each chair has restraints that vary according to the wheelchair.

o They only have to competitions in a year: the Spain championship, represented by the Madrid Selection, and the Spain Championship by clubs, which have an

excellent level.

o The goal of the most players is win back the Spain Championship like in 2013. They have a dream too, and it is to be able to take part in a Paralympic competition. They want to play in a mundial competition and the hockey becomes a Paralympic sport.