This Incredible Paralympics Ad Could Make You Cry

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Paralympic athletes don’t receive anything resembling the global publicity or endorsement deals of their Olympic counterparts — but their stories are arguably even more inspiring. That’s thrown into stark relief with this epic commercial produced by Britain’s Channel 4, the official carrier of the London Paralympics. Set against Public Enemy’s “Harder Than You Think,” the one-and-a-half-minute spot shows Paralympic swimmers, basketball players, sprinters and other athletes hard at work.

But what makes the ad more powerful is spliced-in footage showing some of the obstacles Paralympic athletes have had to overcome — including war injuries, birth defects and car accidents. The video, called “Meet the Superhumans,” has been on YouTube since July, but takes on added meaning this week with the Paralympic Games getting underway. Check it out for yourself above, but be warned — it may put a lump in your throat.

Overall online success is crucial to the Paralympics as well, as Craig Spence, the International Paralympic Committee’s media communications director, told Mashable recently. The Paralympic.org website is live streaming nearly 600 hours of footage during the Games, and will also upload an additional 1,000 hours of taped on-demand coverage to the IPC’s YouTube channel during the Paralympics’ Aug. 29 – Sept. 9 run. The IPC wil also use Facebook and Twitter to push content during the Games, and helps co-manage some of its top athletes’ Facebook pages.

“There’s no one website in the world that caters to the Paralympic movement,” Spence told us before the Games. “So our aim for London is that we’ve said our website should be that place.”

Will you follow the Paralympics online? Tell us how or why not in the comments.

Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/08/30/paralympics-ad/

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