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Paralympic Movement
Since 2005 Ritzio Holding has been providing active support to Paralympic movement uniting sportsmen with limited physical capabilities.
A long-term partnership between Ritzio and the Russian Paralympic Committee started with the holding’s sponsorship of the Russian national team at 2006 Winter Paralympic Games in Turin. The team’s brilliant victory at the Paralympics attracted public attention to disabled athletes and their issues. Paralympians won 33 medals, including 13 gold awards, and outrivaled contenders from 38 countries.
In early 2007 Ritzio Entertainment Group’s President Oleg Boyko became the head of the Paralympic Movement Development Commission under the Russian Paralympic Committee. The same year the Commission and Ritzio Entertainment Group organized the 2
nd Back to life awards ceremony for Paralympic sportsmen. The award was presented in 10 nominations to outstanding sportsmen, coaches and doctors of the Paralympic national team who had demonstrated high professional results at the 9
th Paralympics in Turin, Italy.
In 2007 the Group’s President Oleg Boyko established The International Paralympic Sports Foundation (Parasport). It is a non-profit charitable foundation organized to support the training and competition of athletes with disabilities. The Foundation serves as a long term source of financial support to athletes worldwide with physical and sensory impairments.
The Foundation and Ritzio provided financial and organizational support to two national Paralympic teams in arranging their training and participation in the Beijing Summer Paralympic Games in September 2008. The funds were used to organize the travel for the athletes and the shipping of equipment and materials to Beijing for the competitions. At the Paralympics, the Russian national team held the 8
th place in team classification, winning 63 medals and thus significantly improving the results of the previous summer Paralympics.
The International Parasport Foundation has also become a General Sponsor and an Official Partner of the Ukrainian Paralympic Team. In July 2008, Parasport provided sufficient funding to the Ukrainian Paralympic Committee to help with the training of the Paralympic athletes for the 2008 Beijing Summer Paralympic Games, organizational preparation for the Games of the Ukrainian Paralympic Committee, and with the general development of sports facilities in the Ukraine. High results of the Ukrainian national team, who was the 4
th in team classification at the summer Paralympics, showed that the attention given to the Paralympic movement both by the government and business has yielded efficient results.
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