What can we learn from the Olympics and Paralympics?

The third category is composed of people like these:

Volleyball player Martine Wright competes at the Paralympics seven years after losing both her legs in a terrorist attack in London.

The Rwandan sitting volleyball team is made up largely of amputees from the 1994 genocide.

"Adrien Niyonshuti is unlikely to win an Olympic medal, and he will do well to even finish his event, but his story is surely one of the most inspirational in the history of the Games. In April 1994, when he was just seven, Niyonshuti's family became victims of the brutal genocide in Rwanda which left nearly 800,000 people slaughtered. He fled the Hutu killers who came to his village, but six of his brothers were murdered and up to 60 of his wider family perished. He miraculously escaped with his mother and father, living off scraps in the countryside, almost starving to death before aid came in the form of the rebel Tutsi army from neighboring Uganda. 'The memory of the genocide is a really hard time for me and for a lot of people in Rwanda,' " he told CNN's Human to Hero series. (CNN)

"Malek Mohammad, an 18-year-old double amputee, has already overcome so many challenges in his young life, some might be tempted to think he requires no assistance whatsoever. But adversity has made him wise beyond his years, and Malek knows better. His struggle has been a lonely one. 'I need support, I need help because I'm representing Afghanistan -- especially disabled people,' says Malek, who more than anything, wanted to swim for his country at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. Landmines took his legs at age 11 as he was walking through a field near Kabul's airport."

Industries are developing to help disabled people to compete in sports. For example, there are a bobsled guided by mind power, guns fired by blowing into a headset, desert waves created by nanobots -- the world of disabled athletes could soon be very different.( Futuristic designs for disabled athletes March 8, 2012 -- Updated 1447 GMT (2247 HKT). Racing wheelchairs have more money devoted to developing them, while wheelchairs for the aged remain little better than they were twenty years ago (ABC RN, Big Ideas).

But prevention of disabilities is even more urgent.

By the time of the next Paralympics, may the athletes be composed only of the first group of causes of disability, that we do not yet know how to prevent or cure; with perhaps a few of the second, that knowledge and facilities still have to extend over the world to prevent and cure? While of the third group, will no more disabled athletes have been the victims of future cruelty, militarism and fanaticism?