A video version of this blog can be found at the bottom of the post for those who find video easier!
I love the Olympics and I love the Paralympics. As an ex-athlete I love watching people compete at the highest possible level and achieve their dreams and goals. Every athlete puts so much hard work and passion into getting to and competing at the Olympics and Paralympics – it’s an incredible feat. But whilst this is all true, there are some aspects of the Paralympics that give me very mixed feelings.
The biggest event for disabled people
The Paralympics are without doubt the most publicised event for disabled people. And this also means that they are one of the most influential events in representing disability to a general audience. In fact, it is often the only time that a lot of people really ever engage with disability (beyond perhaps old age disability).
Something which the Paralympics has been very successful at doing is showcasing that disabled people can achieve incredible things, and can enjoy their lives. Paralympians really show that disabled people do not always have to be ‘helpless’ or ‘miserable’ or wishing that they were non-disabled.
Whilst reporting and portrayal of the Paralympics is often filled with inspiration porn, and often frames disabled athletes as superhuman, influential paralympians, and many other disabled people, are speaking out about this dehumanising portrayal and slowly changing the way in which disability is talked about, using the Paralympics as a catalyst for this conversation. Over the last few Paralympics, the UK coverage of the paralympians has increasingly been celebrating them as athletes and giving more context behind their stories, as well as showing the need for accessible grass roots sport. Edit: after I’d written this We the 15, a campaign organised by the paralympics, came out with a very good promotional video exactly about this!
The Paralympics excludes many disabilities
Where my feelings become complicated about the Paralympics is in the very exclusive ideas of disability that the Paralympics create. Did you know that something like 70% of people with disabilities would not be considered disabled enough, or have the ‘right kind of disability’ to be eligible to compete at the Paralympics? And rather than becoming more inclusive, recent changes in the Paralympic classification system have left previously ‘disabled enough’ athletes, and even previous paralympians, no longer allowed to compete at the 2021 Tokyo games, as they are no longer classified as the right sort of disabled under the Paralympic classification system.
The Paralympics website very clearly states that classification is at the heart of the Paralympics. In a way, that makes sense. I cannot imagine how difficult it is to create classifications that are considered somewhat equal, when disability encompasses a whole range of different impairments. It is hard enough when it comes to divisions in the non-disabled Olympics, because the idea of an equal playing field – when there is such economic disparity between teams from different countries, when gender is not as binary as it is painted in the Olympics, and when non-disabled bodies already have some level of difference that gives people (such as Michael Phelps) quite an advantage – is somewhat laughable. Add to that the full spectrum of disability and it is really no surprise that classification in the Paralympics is destined to be difficult.
The Paralympics website answers this difficulty by stating that
“If an athlete is not eligible to compete in a sport, this does not question the presence of a genuine impairment. It is a sport ruling.” But this does not really change the impact that the Paralympics – by only representing such a narrow range of disabilities – has on people’s perception of disability as something that doesn’t stop you being fit and healthy.
Am I really disabled?
Growing up, I think most of my interactions with disabilities were from one of two sources: weekly afternoons when the local disabled school would join the classes in my village primary school; and the Paralympics. There was very little else. As a result, my eyes were never really opened to the existence of chronic illnesses, or any of the other wide variety of disabilities. What this meant is that, when I did become disabled, I did not feel like I was really disabled. I mean, yes, I had a severe impairment, and was not able-bodied, but was I really disabled? My own experience of disability did not align with anything I had seen previously and so I had a really narrow definition of disability. But not realising I was disabled, prevented me from accessing help with my higher education, or in any other setting, for years.
Because the Paralympics represents such a small subset of disabilities, but is marketed as if it is open to all disabilities, it really limits a wider understanding of disabilities such as ME/CFS, or other chronic illnesses – many of which you cannot push through and ‘overcome’. It suggests, to those who have had few interactions with disability, that any disabled person, if they try hard enough, could be a paralympian. When the only other portrayal of disabled people is of disabled, benefit scroungers who are often vilified as too lazy to work, we can see how a dichotomy is created between the superhuman, paralympian – the ‘good’ disabled, who doesn’t let their disability get in the way – and the lazy, benefit scrounger, who may even be lying about their illness, just to access ‘secondary benefits’ and is therefore the ‘bad’ disabled. What neither of these portrayals really does is show, the incredibly diverse experiences of disability and impairment in a realistic light.
To add to this, it also sucks that, as a disabled person, I am too disabled to ever think of trying for the Olympics, but despite my huge impairment I am not ‘disabled enough’ to be eligible for the disabled Olympics – even if I did end up being a whizz at sitting volleyball.
A plethora of problems
There is a lot to talk about when it comes to the Paralympics, so I just want to mention a few other things here, in case it piques your interest and makes you want to read further.
The Paralympics often receives much less media attention that the Olympics, whilst the athletes work just as hard, if not harder, as they also have to find a way to access disabled sport which is a mission in itself. I think if you ask most people, they will be able to name significantly more non-disabled athletes than disabled athletes – if they are able to name any paralympians at all. This has, until Tokyo 2021, also meant that paralympians were paid less as athletes, and there have been examples in the past of Paralympic athletes losing funding more frequently than Olympic athletes. There is a great disparity here.
There is also the fact that, as with every aspect of disabled life, Paralympic athletes have to be tested regularly and examined, and to hand over all their medical files, in order to prove that they are disabled enough. This gets quite boring when in every aspect of your life, for accommodations, for welfare, for anything not deemed as necessary for non-disabled people, disabled people have to jump through hoops to prove that they are actually disabled.
What’s the solution?
I don’t have an answer to this question. I love the Paralympics, I think competitive sport is exciting and can be incredibly fulfilling, so in no way would I want it to stop. Creating endless categories to include more disabilities would be an option but, practically, this is incredibly difficult. Perhaps more of the media coverage surrounding the Paralympics could be done by disabled people, and it could be used as a starting point to discuss what it means to be disabled. In the same way that, during the Olympics, there is a big focus on sport, and money goes into getting people into sport, if the same energy could be channelled into giving disabled people access to sport and recreation, without it needing to be high level, that would be really exciting. Having had a hunt today for a para-volleyball team to join, I found something like eight in the entirety of the UK. It’s hard to find accessible sport at a grassroots level and it would be awesome if that could change.
Do you have any ideas of how we could change these things? Let me know, in the comments below. I’m really interested in what you think about it!
