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00:00The Paralympics continue here in France this Wednesday. Powerlifting is taking place with
00:04superstars from Asia and Africa hoping to lead the way. James Vecina is standing by at the
00:11event for us. James, powerlifting has begun. How is it different from other Paralympic events?
00:20I think I just caught the end of you there, Delano. It indeed is different to other
00:26events in the Paralympics because, as we've seen over the last weeks, the Paralympic events are
00:31normally divided into the different categories depending on people's different disabilities,
00:35which is why you'll see codes such as F20 or T37, for example, in athletics. Those codes
00:43that denote an athlete's disability and also the range to which they are affected by that
00:49disability. Now, that, however, is not the case with powerlifting. In powerlifting,
00:54everybody competes in the same category, which is why you will see athletes who either don't
00:59have legs, for example, compete against people with dwarfism. They all compete in the same
01:03category. The only, of course, difference being that, as in other weightlifting sports,
01:09weightlifting competitions, the athletes are divided by their weight. So that goes, for example,
01:14from the smallest weight from just over 40 kilos for women all the way up to 107 kilos for the men.
01:2210 different categories for both the male and the female between all of those. So 10 divisions
01:27between them. Now, the powerlifting is all about the bench press. Now, the bench press, what is it?
01:32It's when the athlete lies down on the bench and has the weight on either side of him
01:38with a bar and has to bring the weight down to his chest and all the way back up again. And for that,
01:44well, judges give their opinion after that on whether what they did was justified,
01:50whether it was right or not, according to the rules, whether it was straight, whether they
01:54brought their arms back up straight properly. And the judges decide on that, three judges
01:59to validate whether or not their lift was correct. Now, they get three attempts to try and lift the
02:05biggest, the most weights possible. To give you an idea of what those sums like, well, we've had
02:11the men's 47 kilos event wrap up just a little bit earlier and Omar Karada from Jordan managed
02:21to lift 181 kilograms. That's almost not far off four times his body weight. So very spectacular
02:29to be watching here inside. Now, there are three main countries who dominate the medals table when
02:35it comes to the history of powerlifting, that being China. Yes, once again, as you mentioned,
02:41an Asian country at the top of those lists there, China extremely strong in so many categories of
02:47the Paralympics. After that, you've got Nigeria who comes second and Egypt also coming third.
02:52Those three nations are way above the others in the general medals table. However, no athlete
02:58has ever won more than four Olympic golds. That could change, though. Two athletes on the female
03:03on the women's side are attempting to do just that. Fatima Omar from Egypt has three medals,
03:09gold medals for her as a tally right now and is competing in these Paris 2024 games,
03:15as is Amalia Perez from Mexico. So they'll be trying to break that record over the coming days
03:21with the powerlifting just beginning then only today here at the Bordeaux-La Chapelle Arena,
03:26which is always also where the badminton has been taking place in the north of Paris.
03:30James, very, very briefly, what else is going on today?
03:35Well, right now we've got the fencing that continues the fencing that began, of course,
03:38yesterday. The big star of that being Bebe Vio looking for her gold, the Italian fencer,
03:43who we've spoken about plenty, is fighting and trying to get another gold this time here in
03:49Paris. We've also got, of course, plenty of athletics to come and a whole host of medals
03:55just to come across the Paralympics. There's so much going on. We've got more going in the
04:00wheelchair tennis as we go towards the finals, of course, in the doubles, which will conclude
04:04later on in the week. And we'll be following all of this for you, Zilano, over the next few hours.