Australians go for gold in Paralympics opener
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Paralympian Matt Cowdrey is aiming to match Michael Phelps's eight gold medals in the pool. (AAP: Jordan Baker, file photo)
The first day of competition at the Paralympic games in Beijing will see 27 gold medals decided.
Australian cyclist Michael Milton will be going for gold in the men's one-kilometre time trial.
Fourteen Australians will compete in swimming heats in the morning, with finals being held later in the day.
Australia's men's wheelchair basketball team takes on Brazil in a preliminary match, while the women's team takes on Great Britain.
The men's and women's table tennis teams play first round matches.
Australian Annabelle Williams, 19, says she is keeping her nerves in check ahead of her Paralympic debut.
"I feel really calm at the moment and I felt really calm the last few days," she said.
"We had a training camp in Kuala Lumpur for a week and when we arrived here I felt a lot more settled, like when we settled into our rooms and with our roommate and found out where everything was, I felt a lot calmer.
"So last few days have been really really good. I'm looking forward to racing."
Australia's Matt Cowdrey is aiming to emulate American Olympian Michael Phelps by winning eight gold medals in the pool.
He says it is hard to gauge the strength of his opposition.
"It's very hard to tell. There's a lot of countries and world rankings don't really mean too much when you get to a Paralympic Games," he said.
"People come out of nowhere, so we'll see what we can do.
"We can only swim to our best and try and swim PBs and that's our main aim as a team, to swim as fast as we can and to swim PBs and whatever happens after that is really too hard to tell, but hopefully we can do quite well."
Last night, world attention once again focussed on the Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium for the Paralympics opening.
The organisers of the ceremony say its purpose was to praise the athletes with disabilities who inspire and motivate the whole world.
Hundreds of performers rehearsed for nine months to present the spectacle of light and sound in front of more than 90,000 people.
