Should Paralympic Gold Medallists Get A Stamp Each?
NOTE: Since this article was written, the Royal Mail has since reversed its decision not to produce individual stamps for gold medal winning Paralympians. Read about it here.
This morning it was revealed that Paralympic gold medallists – unlike their Olympic counterparts – will not be getting a Royal Mail commemorative stamp each to commemorate their achievement at London 2012.
Bemused Paralympics fans took to Twitter, accusing the Royal Mail of scoring a PR own goal for the unequal treatment of athletes.
But the official response from the British Paralympic Association is that they’re “happy,” with the arrangement – blaming their own predicted high medal tally for making it “logistically and practically impossible for Royal Mail to produce an individual stamp for every one of the gold medallists for ParalympicsGB.”
It may not be practical – but is it fair?
In Beijing 2008 the ParalympicsGB team bagged a whopping 42 gold medals between them – and this time around they’re expected to do even better. At the time of writing, the GB Olympic team have scored 22 gold medals – just over half of ParalympicsGB’s Beijing tally – so how many more medals does the Olympic team have to win at London 2012 before it becomes “logistically and practically impossible,” to produce individual stamps for all of them too? What’s the cut off number?
And if 42 individual stamps is too many, then what would be a better way to commemorate individual achievements at the Paralympics that’s still as thoroughly British as a Royal Mail stamp?
A new range of potato crisps or teabags or bowler hats? What if we renamed each of the UK’s 50 motorways after a gold medal winning Paralympian? Or better yet, the UK’s 66 cities?
There’s no doubt that the London 2012 Paralympic Games will ignite this country’s passion for disability sport like never before, but it’s the little things – like stamps – that’ll help preserve its legacy in the hearts and minds of the British public when it’s over.
If you have any better ideas for how to commemorate individual achievements at the Paralympics, let us know by leaving a comment!
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There are 44 comments on this post
I think they deserve it just as much as the Olympians, and if it is a bit difficult or troublesome, imagine what the Paralympians have had to do in order to win their Gold medals.
Sort it OUT, Royal Mail!
I think logistical reasons is a cop out. The Paralympians prob dont want their faces on a stamp. I know i wouldn’t.. They got their recognition when they won the medals. Anything else is exactly what the committee say, a OR stunt.. Royal Mail charge ridiculous prices for stamps but patriotic folk will feel obliged to but some because Chris Hoy etc are on it. Then the gold Post Boxes. Headlines such as Great Bling – it’s fast becoming a circus and im glad the Paralympics dont go for all that. They accept their athletes are there for the sport and the medals. For their country. Not for the fame and hype after the medals. Typical England though, sing when they’re winning. Would they have put competitors faces on Andrex packets had they not won ? Leave it alone i think and focus on the sport..
I am stunned that the effort and achievements of our Paralympian’s will not be celebrated in the same way our Olympian’s is being! It is a disgrace
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Personally I’d like to see a nice set of six to ten stamps as a first day cover. Ideally showing all the Paralympic gold winners, that isn’t as expensive as however many individual stamps and can be framed to go on the wall.
The Royal Mail must have planned their issuing of Team GB Olympic gold-medal-winner commemorative stamps well in advance. They also must have generally been able to predict the number of Team GB gold-medal-winners for both the Olympics & Paralympics, and therefore the cost of the exercise, which of course is an excellent advertising campaign for them.
So why have they deliberately planned to celebrate individual success for Team GB Olympic gold-medal-winners, but decided it would be OK not to do the same for Team GB Paralympic gold-medal-winners?
The only possible conclusion is discrimination against disabled people. Cynical and unacceptable.
Logistical reasons? How difficult is it to change the picture and print off stamps? It’s hardly rocket science is it!
I am, however, delighted to hear that all gold medalists will be getting a gold post box. Looking forward to having my photo taken in front of Richard Whitehead’s.
Yes!! I always thought it was about celebrating the achievement who ever the athlete may be, non-disabled and disabled athletes alike, this kind of says to the world that the Royal Mail and Government don’t recognise the achievements of the Paralympians in the same standards as the Olympians. This is not only discrimination but embarrassing with the world watching! The UK should be leading the was with inclusion not holding it back.
All gold medallists should have a stamp. All or none: simple as. Anything less is discrimination and disrespect.
I’m a disability blogger who is disappointed to read about our lack of stamps. http://samedifference1.com/2012/08/08/no-individual-stamp-honours-for-paralympic-gold-medallists-says-royal-mail/
[...] 3.50pm: It’s also been covered by Channel 4′s Paralympic Blog. Another step forward. Share [...]
How are we supposed to convince our children that all people are equal when a national organisation like royal mail obviously doesnt think that they are? My son has cp and I have spent a lot of time convincing him that he can achieve anything he sets his heart to and that his paralympic heroes are just as amazing as any Olympic athlete. I agree with Catherine – all or nothing, if they cant logistically include all London 2012 gold medalists then they shouldnt do any.
I am a parent of a disabled child and a founder of a charitable organisation and I strongly disagree with this decision, so much so that I have started a petition; http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/say-no-to-paralympian-gold-winning-medallists/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=system&utm_campaign=Send%2Bto%2BFriend
Royal Mail has made a decision not to honour Gold winning
Paralympians with their own individual postage stamp. EVERY able bodied Gold
winning Olympian will be honoured with their own stamp, so why not Paralympians?
This is a huge disappointment and blow to Parents of disabled children who are
trying to instil the message that you can strive to be all you want to be and
fighting battles every single day to allow their children to be accepted and
treated as equals by society. Do Paralympians train less hard? aspire less? Or
deserve less recognition for a Gold wining performance? The answer is “NO!” GOLD
is GOLD. Say “NO” to disability discrimination
Will they still get the gold Post Boxes??
Not sure I can understand the logistical problem. We can reasonably expect a strong gold medal haul (42 in Beijing, only going to get higher for London) during the comparatively short time of competition (10 days). That would roughly average out at around 5 golden stamps a day. Royal Mail managed to produced 4 gold stamps for Super Saturday. However, perhaps 5 a day for 10 days is a bit much…? I’m not sure…
What I really cannot understand is their compromise offer to print six stamps at the end of the Paralympics with the faces of all the gold-medal winners!? So that would be roughly 50 faces crammed onto six stamps. Are we expected to get our magnifying glasses out to try and see who they are?! Why not print an individual stamp for each Paralympic Champion like they did for the Olympics?? It’s a disgrace!!
Yes they should!
Thank you Channel 4 for your support of the ‘super humans’ – felt v proud, emotional and aware of their sacrifices through watching your TV advert for the Paralympics. Can’t ‘the powers’ sacrifice a little time and money?
I bet very few of the people who express outrage in this comments section have enough drive or motivation about the issue to actually need a stamp to post a letter to someone influential.
Paralympians are human too. This is total discrimination and royal mail should be ashamed of themselves. It makes me ashamed to be British
Surely a compromise? Categorise the gold
Medal winners into athletics, swimming, etc and put the winners on the relevant stamp to ensure their monumental effort is recognised and collectors and fans can keep a remarkable souvenir of something we are all embracing right now
Whatever the reason behind it, it will be interpreted by the man in the street as confirming that Paralympic achievement is worth less than Olympic achievement. The Paralympics was supposed to be an opportunity to stop people thinking that being disabled makes us somehow less, but this decision by Royal Mail, and particularly the unbelievable support shown for it by Paralympics GB, means that precisely the opposite message is being given.
Speaking as a disabled person, and as someone regularly called to speak on the disability hate crime that disabled people face on the streets of the UK from people convinced that being disabled really does make us less, I think both Royal Mail and Paralympics GB have struck a blow against disabled equality, and that both parties should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
[...] Channel 4′s Paralympic Blog [...]
A very quick fix. Make the individual stamps but put them for sale on the Internet royal mail store. This would solve the PR blunder from Royal Mail, not commit them to putting potentially unsold stamps into shop, which lets face it is the underlying view here. The white elephant is that they do not feel that it will have as much intensity a the Olympics. Get them on the Internet, let us prove them wrong andproblem sorted!
WHY?! Paralympians getting gold deserve the same acknowledgement as the Olympians. Sadly discrimination appears to flourish.
THe message being sent out with this action is one that they believe disabled people are second class citizens. Believe me when i say that they are not,
This is blatant discrimination and could and should be challenged – the royal mail have a public duty under the terms of the equalities act and this discrimination must be challenged.
If Royal Mail stick to this flawed decision it will be a National disgrace – with the rest of the world watching! The fact that RM planned to discriminate in this way, and convinced themselves it would be OK is unbelievable. Shame on you Royal Mail!
That’s where your wrong Chris. I have posted several.
“C4Paralympics: RT @Karen_catfan: @C4Paralympics have you overlooked the fact the RM are also donating £200k to the gold medal paralympians? Surely thats more beneficial” the money will no doubt be of huge benefit to the paralympic team but I feel you’re missing the point. My nine year old said to me today “does that mean Olympic medals are more important?” He’ll never get an olympic medal as he has CP but he’s working hard at his sport because he wants to get a paralympic one. Why shouldnt his heroes be household names like the Olympic medal winners? The money will fund training – these stamps, like the games, like Channel 4s coverage and Sainsbury’s superb sponsorship, would help raise awareness amongst the whole country and show the world that in GB we are all equal.
Royal Mail should never have mooted this idea at all, they should have found creative alternatives. As it is they appear to have decided to prioritise spending their PR budget on able-bodied athletes, despite the greater achievements of disabled athletes. It sends the wrong message because it was the wrong decision. Really unimpressed.
I think it’s disgusting of Royal Mail to refuse to put disabled people who win Gold at the Paralympics on stamps, the same as people who win gold at the Olympics
Royal Mail should hang their heads in shame, with this Royal Mail are going back to the era when people with disabilities were treated as third rate citizens.
It’s even worse to think that these people in the Paralympics have to work even harder than those in the Olympics to achieve gold, and work around their disabilities, and then to get ditched like that, absolutely unbelievable.
I’ve discovered a number of things that have been done wrong with regards to the paralympics -
1. Royal Mail stamp snub
2. Vue cinemas – showing Olympics for free, but no plans to show Paralympics.
3. Cadbury’s World – were selling loads of chocolate olympic mascots, they had loads of Wenlock there but no Mandeville (the Paralympic mascot)
4. BBC – Ditching the Paralympic coverage, I’m really impressed by Channel 4 for taking up the option to cover the paralympics. Well done C4, certainly remember that in future when it comes to deciding what channels to watch!
5. Local tourist information centre – again loads of Wenlock mascots on the 2012 stand, key rings, fridge magnets, toys, etc, but not one Mandeville (you can tell the difference btw – Mandeville is a different shape, plus on the top of the head Mandeville has an M where as Wenlock has a W).
6. Official Olympic game by Sega does not include any Paralympic sports at all. I thought it would be really interesting to have a proper console game that you could play something like wheelchair volleyball or one of the many other paralympic sports as well as the main Olympic sports, but it seems Sega has gone down the same route as every other Olympic game ever produced and ditched the Paralympic sports from the game.
After reading this though about the stamps Royal Mail have really gone down in my opinion as being very anti-disability and I hope they get their “Positive about Disabled People” awards stripped from them for this decision.
I have a disability myself, Asperger’s, a form of Autism, and know how hard it is to compete when your disabled especially when it comes to sport, unfortunately when I was learning sport at school I was always picked on due to my clumsy attitude (I have dyspraxia as well as asperger’s), and so that really put me off any type of sport. Thankfully afterwards completing the Gold D of E did get me a bit back into doing sport – which was walking with the ramblers, something I could do and people there were accepting of me regardless of my disability, and I also took up cycling and actually learned how to ride a bike (riding a bike with dyspraxia is a lot harder, but I also had a two friends in the scouts, one with dyspraxia as well who taught me how to balance on the bike!)
Agree completely. Not rewarding the paraolympians with individual stamps shows to the nation that this county doesn’t view a para-olympic gold as equal worth to that of an abled body olympic gold. They are all Olympic golds after all. I can’t see it any other way but discrimination and a complete lack of respect refusing to honour the work of our paraolympians equally. They have worked just as hard, if not harder to achieve their gold medals; less support, lack of equal rights, far less funding & financial backing. Royal Mail & the Olympic committee should be embarrassed for thinking 6 faces to a stamp would be acceptable.
What would Royal Mail have done if Oscar Pistorius had been on Team GB and have won his event????
Of course they should get a stamp each, and gold postboxes too!
Multiple Paralympic golds doesn’t mean multiple stamps, just one each and teams would have been 24 stamps. Royal Mail rumbled.
24 stamps, 21 people were multiple winners, and there were three teams.
Thats 24 stamps.
Not 42.
Olympics already exceeds this.
[...] the Games haven’t started yet (29th August- 9th September) the website is currently featuring blog entries and news articles. The latest discuss whether or not it’s fair that Paralympic gold medallists [...]
Disability sporting prowess should be rewarded with a National Centre of Excellence,with every need catered for in one place.
I think it is extremely unfair that the paralympians aren’t getting the same as the olympians that manage to achieve gold in the form of a stamp. Obviously the fact that they’very got the gold medal is the main thing which is a huge achievement but they are being treated different by the royal mail. They say the reason behind the decision is that there’ll be a lot more GB gold medal paralympians than olympians but look at how many we’ve had in the Olympics so far… 28 with still the last day to go. They wouldn’t have stopped making stamps if we’d have managed to get 10 or 20 more gold medals, they’d have just got on with it and made the stamps anyway without complaint. They’re just trying to make up excuses and I don’t think its acceptable.
I appreciate that there are potentially more gold medals up for grabs for British paralympians but each and every one would have worked just as hard (if not harder in some cases) and deserve recognition. I also appreciate that it could be a tall order to have each stamp ready and available to purchase the next morning as the Olympians had but why not produce them a few days later or even collectively at the end?? Come on royal mail, sort it out!!!
I’m not sure why any medal winner needs to be on a stamp at all, to be honest. The fuss is getting rather out of hand. Nor do I want to be seeing ugly gold postboxes wherever I go. People are doing well in their chosen sport – great, well done to them, but none of them, Olympian or Paralympian, are heroes. They’re sportsmen and sportswomen, that’s all.
The printers used by the RM are quie capable in normal circumstances to produce blocks of several different stamps together – for example this – http://www.stanleygibbons.com/stanleygibbons/view/product/sgproductcatalog/106302/388149/SG769580 – is a single sheet with 20 different stamps produced for the 2012 Olympics so I fail to see why something similar could not be produced as a commemoration at the end of the games.
hi
I felt saddened that after the closing ceremony of the olympics and the torch being extinguished, the paralympics was pretty well forgotten….it should have been a seamless reminder to everyone that there is yet more to come, rather than TEam GB flags and banners being taken down in various places. In relation to the stamps, I would rather see more commitment to funding the paralympics to be honest.
I think they should still get stamps, but as there will be so many more golds for Team GB at the Paralympics, maybe they could produce commemorative sheets afterwards rather than having the 24 hour turnaround.
Also, with the sheets of 6 stamps being over £3 each, it would be over the budget of a lot of people to be able to purchase them all (as was also the case with the Olympics where I didn’t realise at first that you had to buy 6 stamps of each). It would be nice if they sold them individually.
Another way which we could commemorate the Olympians and Paralympians would be to have bobbleheads of each of the medal winners to collect. This would be aimed at children so they can collect a set of good role models and inspirational people rather than just pop stars or footballers.
Breaking news at http://www.royalmailgroup.com/gold-medal-stamp-each-paralympicsgb-individual-or-team-win
People power won
[...] frankly the explanation is absurd, but the result is the same. As other people pointed out on this Channel 4 article, there are many many ways that the Paralympics is not being treated equitably – perhaps more [...]
[...] Channel 4 Paralympic Blog: Should Paralympic gold medalists receive stamps? http://blogs.channel4.com/paralympics/2012/08/08/should-paralympic-gold-medallists-get-a-stamp-each/ [...]