More than 150 wounded warriors are in San Antonio this week from all over the country, as far away as Puerto Rico and Oregon, for this year’s Valor Games Southwest.
Veterans and active-duty service members come to the Alamo City to compete in the annual sports competition, which Valor Games director Ross Davis says helps even the most seriously wounded veterans regain their self-confidence.
“I was talking to one of the guys the other day and he said, ‘Sports saved my life. You know, it kept me from going down in a hole into a place that I didn’t think I would get out of.’”
Ross says one of the most exciting things each year is to see the adaptive technologies that have been developed to help wounded warriors succeed.
“We’ve got athletes who are visually impaired and can’t see to steer a bike and don’t know where they’re going. But they have a pilot. So we have a two-seat bike with a pilot in the front and a person in the back doing most of the work. We’ve got amputees that use their prosthesis to attach to pedals. We have double amputees that are sitting and using hand-crank cycles and recumbent cycles for those who have other impairments,” Ross said. “And it’s a great thing to see all this adaptive technology that’s been developed to assist people with all kinds of impairments to be able to succeed in sports.”
The first two days of this week at Mission Concepción, the competition included airguns, rowing, wheelchair basketball and archery. Wednesday the event moves to Sea World for kayaking, cycling, and powerlifting.
