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By Elizabeth Hudson
BBC Sport in Athens
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Monday is a big day for Afghanistan athlete Mareena Karim who makes her
Paralympic debut.
The 14-year-old, one of only two women in her country's delegation, will
compete in the heats of the T46 100m.
Getting to Athens has been an achievement for Karim, who lost both her feet
as an infant after they were burned.
She has only been training properly for two months and lives in Kabul along
with her 10 brothers and eight sisters.
"They are living in a ruined house," explained Afghanistan Paralympic
Committee secretary-general Dr Abdul Baseer.
"They fled the front lines of a battle between the Northern Alliance and the
Taliban in Kabisa. They have had to do some repairs but at least there is a
roof over them."
One of the more memorable events during Sunday's athletics programme was
the men's F11 long jump for blind athletes.
Technical precision on the board is a hard thing to master for able-bodied
athletes but the athletes jumping on Sunday also had valuable help from
their guides.
Some guides ran behind their athlete, others stood at the end of the runway
and shouted instructions as they made their way towards them while a Cuban
coach used a whistle to communicate his instructions.
The medallists all managed jumps well in excess of six metres.
The emotions all got too much for the Roberts family when swimmer David
clinched a silver medal in the men's SM7 200m individual medley.
The 24-year-old from Swansea, who has cerebral palsy won seven medals -
including three golds - in Athens and showed a superb return to form after
having major surgery.
"My mother is somewhere up in the seating and she is crying like a baby,"
revealed her son.
Hopefully they were tears of joy and there could be more when Roberts goes
in his main event, the 100m freestyle, on Monday.
Paralympians prepare for their events in many different ways.
This columnist found itself in a fish restaurant in Mikrolimano, near Pireas on
Saturday night and was surprised to find Canadian wheelchair athlete Jeff
Adams sitting at the next table.
Introductions were made and Adams, one of his country's most outspoken
Paralympians, admitted he was happy to be out of the athletes' village -
albeit temporarily - and looking forward to making amends after he crashed out
of the Olympic demonstration race last month.
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