Are The Paralympics Patronising?
This week a survey by charity Scope caused uproar when it was suggested that a less than a quarter of disabled people are excited about the Paralympics in 2012 – with 65% believing they should be merged with the Olympics.
Half a dozen equally bleak statistics were also trotted out in the report, but the one that stuck out to me most was “22% of disabled people questioned felt ‘patronised’ by the Paralympics.” Why does it stick out? Because it questions the core purpose of Paralympic sport, and is the only statistic to have emerged from the survey that cannot simply be countered by more stats. Whether or not this little info-nugget is a true reflection of the disabled population as a whole is a moot point – what it suggests is that there are at least SOME disabled people out there who feel that the Paralympic movement sends out a message about disabled people that doesn’t truly reflect the way they wish to be perceived.
Having spent the last year and a half following the future stars of the London 2012 Paralympic Games, the one thing that has become abundantly clear is that Paralympians are working damned hard to achieve Paralympic glory. Day in, day out, they sweat, bleed and vomit (sometimes on me) through their training regimes just as hard as their Olympic counterparts – and the rigorousness of the tests that they have to undergo and standards they must conform to are equally gruelling.
What the Paralympics provides is a platform for dedicated, hardworking individuals to achieve at elite level, without the complications that disabled people often face in other walks of life – and perhaps it is this latter point that the controversial 22% see as a bone of contention.
At the risk of inflaming the entire Paralympic population then, decoding the naysayers’ argument would read something like as follows: There are less disabled people in the world than there are able-bodied people, and even less with the specific disabilities required to be considered eligible to compete in the various categories in each of the 21 Paralympic sports. Add in that the likelihood of disabled people choosing to pursue a life in sport is less than that of the able-bodied – this means that the overall pool of potential competitors in Paralympic sport is smaller than that in Olympic sport.
And as in all walks of life, being the best in your field isn’t always about trying the hardest. Doubtless there have been thousands, if not tens of thousands, of footballers throughout history that spent just as much time practising keepie-uppies as David Beckham did as a kid – or runners that spent just as long running up and down a strip of tarmac as Usain Bolt – that did not go on to achieve the same level of sporting greatness. Hard work is certainly a vital component of success, but it’s likely by way of sheer luck that both David Beckham and Usain Bolt were also born with a natural aptitude for their sport which allowed them to achieve above and beyond their equally hard-working peers.
Of course many, many Paralympic athletes are similarly blessed with a natural aptitude for their sport as Becks and Bolt have been – but presumably they are also rarer given the smaller pool of potential competitors.
So how can you ever really, really be sure that the Paralympic athlete you are watching is actually any good – as opposed to just the best of the bunch? And should we hold these people in equal, or even higher, regard than say, Stevie Wonder or Professor Stephen Hawking – who have achieved at an elite level in fields where the complications that disabled people often face in other walks of life are in abundance? Wonder and Hawking’s pools of potential competitors aren’t just made up of people with similar ailments – they are made up of anyone and everyone willing to take on the challenge, disabled or otherwise.
“So what?” the counsel for the defence retorts: Is Avatar a better film than Citizen Kane because it took more at the box office? Is Thrust SSC more fun to drive than a Bugatti Veyron because it’s faster? Does the fact that the cast of Glee have had more singles in the chart than The Beatles mean they’re better musicians?
To answer ‘Yes’ to any of those questions is to slightly miss the point of movie making, car design and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. What Paralympic sport offers is a complexity and depth that able-bodied sports just can’t match – because it’s not just the winning that counts, but also how you win.
For example, leg amputees have an advantage in Sitting Volleyball because they don’t have to fold their legs out of the way. Blind footballers have an advantage in ball control if they learned how to play before they went blind – but their congenitally blind team mates are likely to have a more attuned spatial awareness of their place on the pitch. And Powerlifting – the Paralympic equivalent of Olympic weightlifting – is open to athletes with all types of mobility impairment, but the sport tends to be dominated by dwarves because to successfully perform a lift requires the athlete to fully extend their arms. Dwarves have shorter arms – therefore don’t have to lift the weight as far as athletes with normal length arms. Name me one fact about the Olympic Canoe Slalom team that’s as interesting as those, and I’ll eat my hat!
There is an irony that disabled people who feel patronised by the Paralympics are putting their focus on what Paralympians don’t do, rather than what they can do – this generally being the number one bugbear of most disabled people the world over.
Paralympians capitalise on whatever they’ve got (or haven’t got) to get ahead – just as ruthlessly as any other successful person would, disabled or otherwise – when faced with competitors who are willing to sweat, bleed and vomit, day in, day out, in order to beat them. So rather than patronising, I’d be more inclined to describe them as admirably intimidating – but then having said all that, intimidation probably isn’t the core purpose of Paralympic sport either.
The convoluted classification systems, the inter-team rivalries and the fascinating people that dedicate their lives to winning gold – that’s what makes Paralympic sport so compelling – and for the London 2012 Paralympic Games, Channel 4 Television is committed to showcasing these intricacies and eccentricities in a way that’s never been done before. Perhaps the Paralympians should all down tools and take up piano lessons or astrophysics degrees à la Wonder and Hawking – but it seems to me like such a waste when they can offer so much hardcore sporting action instead.
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There are 10 comments on this post
I would love to say that the Paralympics will be positive for disabled people, but in the current atmosphere which sees us demonized as scroungers at every turn, I think the very real achievements of the Paralympians will just be used as another stick to beat us with – “If Oscar Pistorius can run 200m in under 22 seconds, why should we make any mobility allowances for you?”
Meanwhile the International Paralympic Committee are not just patronising disabled people, but treating us with utter contempt by making ATOS their official partner, no matter the overwhelming evidence of disabled people being bullied and misrepresented in ATOS-run benefit assessments, the vast majority of which occur in offices that don’t meet basic accessibility standards. When I wrote to the IPC protesting this their reply was essentially ‘we don’t care’. There’s just as big a story here as the LOCOG-Dow partnership, and the IPC-ATOS partnership is going to be just as distressing to disabled people, but clearly the disabled side of the story isn’t considered as newsworthy. But can you imagine anything more shameful than disabled people being forced to protest against the IPC at the Paralympics.
I’m a Paralympic medalist (bronze in wheelchair basketball in 2004) and I wrote a blog post in response to this piece: http://youngandhip.blogspot.com/2011/12/are-paralympics-patronizing.html
Great response Young & Hip. Interesting… I decided to stop short of asking whether Paralympians should be considered ‘inspirational’ or not. Perhaps that’s a question for my next blog. What do you think of Channel 4′s coverage of London 2012 so far? Is it pursuing the ‘inspirational narrative’ or showing Paralympic sport as it should be?
mostly agree @young and hip!
The Paralympics are about Elite Sport! Yes, the people competing are disabled and you can be inspired by that, but that’s not what Paralympians are trying to achieve, I don’t think. Unfortunately you are right in saying “A Paralympic athlete, however, is inspirational because she overcame a disability (bonus points if this disability was acquired in a tragic manner) and is exhibiting hope and courage and rainbows and butterflies by just competing at all”. Look at the coverage Paralympians get and also which Paralympians get coverage at all! Most of them have only made a name for themselves because they have a story behind them that is inspirational or dramatic.
I read an interesting blog a few months back about disabled people in the press. Although this isn’t specifically about athletes,it seems valid for disabled sport coverage too: http://limblogger.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/how-were-seen/
It seems like unless you have a story with your sporting performance it’s mostly uninteresting for mainstream media or sponsors. Just winning medals just isn’t enough, because every Olympian is portrayed to “do that better”. So if you look at a Paralympian winning a gold medal in a cycling event and an Olympian winning a gold medal in the same event, who do you think will get the coverage? Surely, no one will feature on the Paralympian, as apparently there isn’t an audience for that???! But how does it look if the Paralympian was a former soldier, or is disabled for a different dramatic reason? Well now, this is a story, isn’t it? Very dramatic, very inspirational, what a sensation! Press can talk about how amazing this person is overcoming all these barriers and and and.
But what messages does that convey? I think the following to name just a few:
1. If you become disabled, you can just go to the Paralympics as everyone seems to get a medal there. You just pick a sport and win, it’s not hard.
2. The Paralympics aren’t really competitive, as otherwise, you couldn’t just pick up a sport and win.
3. All the other Paralympians aren’t that great, because they have been born with a disability, how boring is that?
Are these messages we want to send? I cant imagine! There is still a lot of work to do in terms of how disability sport is portrayed! And also what athletes actually “deserve” the recognition/coverage they get. Like Young and Hip said, there isn’t a correct measure at the moment. Just carrying out the sport is enough if you have a story with you.
Finally, to answer your question “Is (Channel4′s coverage) pursuing the ‘inspirational narrative’ or showing Paralympic sport as it should be?”
So and so. In general, you hit the nail on the head focusing on the sport rather than athlete’s disabilities. But then I look at some of the athletes who have been covered the most and it looks like you have fallen into the same trap in some cases. Obviously, there will always be a degree of “we need a good story with it”, but it needs to be in perspective of what is actually going on in the sport, what the athlete has actually achieved sporting wise, who they are going to compete against, etc. In some cases, it seems like the focus has been on a silver medal winner with a good story who became disabled dramatically, rather than on the gold medal winner without a good story and born with the disability. A recent example of this could be to name Ellie Simmons in your top 10 disabled sports personalities. Was she in there for her performance this year or because she’s Ellie and everyone knows her? I personally thought there were athletes that had achieved more this year than her just from a sporting aspect.
Another thing that I noticed is that disabled athletes seem to be more amazing when competing in able-bodied events. I can agree with that to a certain degree. However, only a handful of athletes can actually achieve that, which are either or all of the below:
-least disabled
-minimum competition within their own country
-disability doesn’t influence the way they compete (e.g. missing a leg is probably not gonna influence someone’s ability in a sport such as shooting?)
So when Sarah Storey competes in AB sport, this is great and she is certainly an amazing cyclist. However, this sometimes makes more severely disabled people look “not as great” as they don#t have this chance/ability. Just because someone like Darren Kenny doesn’t compete AB, doesn’t mean he has achieved less or isn’t a good a cyclist. But instead, media and general public now expects that every Paralympic athlete should be able to compete in able-bodied events as well if they are successful Paralympians. As you know, this is simply not the case!
The fact that someone like Oscar Pistorius can compete on International AB level might also have to do with him being South African. I don’t think he would have this chance if he was Jamaican or American… This is not to say that I don’t think he is a great athlete, but sometimes these things have also got to do with luck. For example Carol Novak, a Romanian Para-Cyclist compete in the AB time trial worlds, even though someone like Jiri Jezek is probably faster than him. However, Jiri is Czech and there are better Czech AB riders than there are Romanian AB riders. The fact that people like Jiri Jezek or Jody Cundy don’t get selected for AB events isn’t because they couldn’t compete against world class able-bodied athletes, it’s because the competition in their own country is too fierce.
Do you seen where I am coming from with this?
Like I said, in general I think you have been doing a great job and your coverage seem to be improving on all the aspects I mentioned. After all, I dont think you have got an easy job on hand…
“Shit, don’t you guys realize how friggin hard it is for most of people with disability just to fight every day just to stay alive? We don’t have the luxury to do sport. Our lives suck, and suck enough that at times we sometimes get tired of fighting every day.
Well at my school last week we played blind football and it was really hard so now you can see how hard they train so dot think it is easy because it is not!(don’t swear it is not nice):)
[...] So while the overwhelmingly majority of disabled people will never be Paralympians (seriously, work out the odds) there’s this as well: 22% of disabled people questioned felt ‘patronised’ by the Paralympics Whether or not this little info-nugget is a true reflection of the disabled population as a whole is a moot point – what it suggests is that there are at least SOME disabled people out there who feel that the Paralympic movement sends out a message about disabled people that doesn’t truly reflect the way they wish to be perceived. C4 Paralympics Blog 7th Dec., 2011 [...]
What are the Paralympics all about?
They are undoubtedly inspirational to many people, but I just don’t get the concept.
Is it about winning and being the best (the fittest)?
Does the least disabled competitor win?
Are some athletes on medication for their conditions. Would this constitute drug cheating?
If the categories of disability are so clearly defined, shouldn’t they all tie?
Isn’t the competitive nature of the Olympics against the spirit of the equality of opportunity and access to a normal integrated life so desired by the disabled?
If we separate according to disability, shouldn’t we separate according to skin colour since black men are clearly on average better runners than white men?
It all seems like one big set of contradictions to me.
Very well put (Calculad). I also don’t get the concept. I just don’t see how you can have a level playing field when there are so many variations in disability types. What are the parameters for determining a particular athletes level of ability for a given event.
Interesting article but as a Channel 4 blogger you really should really know when to use the word FEWER rather than LESS.