Reflecting on the 2020 Paralympic Games; and Hoping for Future Integration

So I have something I'm kind of ashamed to admit. The Paralympic Games were several weeks ago, and I didn't watch one event. I couldn't tell you when they ended or who won what. The most I know about them are only the controversies reported on in the news. I'm asking myself why it is that I didn't watch. It's not like I don't like watching the Olympics. I've watched most every Summer and Winter Games since I was a kid.

To understand and question my prejudices and maybe even uncomfortableness with the Paralympics, I needed to do some research. The following are some interesting facts I learned about the Paralympic Games. (courtesy of Wikipedia): link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paralympic_Games.

• The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the Games of the Paralympian, is a periodic series of international multi-sport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities.

• There are Winter and Summer Paralympic Games, which since the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, are held almost immediately following the respective Olympic Games.

• All Paralympic Games are governed by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and recognized worldwide.

• The Paralympic Games were designed to emphasize the participants' athletic achievements and not their disability. Recent games have emphasized that these games are about ability and not disability.

• The Paralympics name derives from the Greek preposition παρά, pará("beside" or "alongside") and thus refers to a competition held in parallel with the Olympic Games. The Summer Games of 1988, held in Seoul, was the first time the term "Paralympic" came into official use.

• "Spirit in Motion" is the motto for the Paralympic movement. The symbol for the Paralympics contains three colors, red, blue, and green, which are the colors most widely represented in the flags of nations.

• The vision of the IPC is, "To enable Paralympic athletes to achieve sporting excellence and to inspire and excite the world."

• The Paralympic anthem is "Hymne de l'Avenir" or "Anthem of the Future". It was composed by Thierry Darnis and adopted as the official anthem in March 1996.

• Unlike the Olympic Games, English is the official language of the Paralympic movement. The other language used at each Paralympic Games is the language of the host country.

• In June 2001, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the (IPC) signed a mutual agreement that would ensure that the staging of the Paralympic Games is automatically included in the bid for the Olympic Games.

• The (IPC) has established ten disability categories for the Paralympic Games. Athletes are divided into categories according to their level of impairment in a functional classification system that differs from sport to sport.

• Both the IOC and IPC Charters state the following regarding equality and discrimination: "The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind, and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity, and fair play. Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on the grounds of race, religion, politics, gender, or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.

• A 2010 study by the University of British Columbia revealed that of roughly 1,600 Canadian respondents, 41–50 percent believed the 2010 Paralympic and Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada triggered additional accessibility of buildings, sidewalks, and public spaces. Twenty-three percent of employers said the Games had increased their willingness to hire people with disabilities.

• Chief Executive Officer for the International Paralympic Committee, Xavier Gonzalez, said about the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, China, that: "In China, the (Paralympic) Games were really a transformation tool for changing attitudes across the board in China towards people with disabilities, to building accessibility facilities in the city, to changing laws to allow people with a disability to be part of society."

• Disabled athletes have participated in both the Olympics and the Paralympics. Trischa Zorn of the United States is the most decorated Paralympian in history. She competed in the blind swimming events and won 55 medals, 41 of which are gold. She was also an alternate on the 1980 American Olympic swim team. Neroli Fairhall, a paraplegic archer from New Zealand, was the third Paralympian to participate in the Olympic Games when she competed in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius was the 10th athlete to compete in both the Olympics and Paralympics.

• The medal count for the 2020 Paralympics is China, 96 gold, 60 silver, and 51 bronze, 207 total; Great Britain, 41 gold, 38 silver, and 45 bronze, 124 total; and the United States, 37 gold, 36 silver, and 31 bronze, 104 total.

Having learned more about the Paralympics, I feel like my uncomfortableness around the games has come into focus. Parts of the game's mission run afoul with my core anti-ableism beliefs. Specifically, their emphasis on ability and not disability, as well as its stated purpose to "inspire."

We hear this a lot, right? Society's hyper-fixation on doing everything it can to morph disability, even the word, into something more "acceptable." Examples include differently-able, hand-capable, disABLED, etc. Ableism requires linguistic gymnastics to describe someone as disabled without using the actual word. As if it is wrong or something. Unfortunately, the statement I noted above by the IPC and other organizations reinforces the idea that the word disability is bad and should be avoided. This idea is very harmful to all disabled people, and quite frankly, they should know better.

Regarding disabled athletes being "inspiring," I can see where that can be an innocent-sounding affirmation. "Oh, your accomplishment is so inspiring." However, the word inspiration has a negative connotation for many in the disability community, particularly those who consider themselves disability pride activists (such as myself). It isn't seen as a compliment because all too often, non-disabled people objectify us through our perceived actions of super-humanness. In reality, though, we aren't superhuman at all. We are just human. Or, in the case of the Olympics, just athletes. So when the IPC uses the word inspiring in their vision statement, it validates the idea that the media should do the same when broadcasting the Paralympic events and profiling disabled competitors. This "inspiration porn" contributes to the ableism that limits the progress of disability rights around the world. Again, the IPC should know better.

The two controversies I mentioned above revolved around equal access and accommodation—two things which you would think organizers would be hyper-aware. After all, the Paralympics is an event organized for disabled inclusion. The first case involved a blind-deaf swimmer who chose not to compete because she could not bring her personal aid. The IPC cited COVID protocols as the reason. The second incident involved a shot-putter who was stripped of his gold medal because he was three minutes late to compete. The athlete said he didn't hear the announcement. The IPC said, "rules are rules."

I agree rules are rules. I know every competition, and life, frankly, needs rules and boundaries of what is acceptable and what isn't. If everyone just did whatever they wanted all the time, there would be little order to say anything of fairness. But for every rule, there can be a reasonable solution, or wait for it: an ACCOMMODATION! These two stories blew up on #disabilitytwitter threads because this is the same BS we disabled people hear every damn day! We live our lives in ableist environments and are gaslight by people who say they value equality and inclusion, but they fail miserably when they are pushed to actually provide that equality and inclusion. It’s at that point that disabled people look at each other like, "Yeah, same shit, different day." And this shit pile stinks a little more on this one because the IPC really should know better.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I have long believed that separate is not equal. And that is how the Paralympic Games feel to me. I appreciate how the IOC and the IPC have worked hard to connect the respective games as much as possible in recent years. And I recognize how the media and sponsors have done a better job to elevate the broadcasting and representation of the Paralympics. But to me, they still feel like a second-class show. They certainly don't get the media coverage the Olympics get. NBC was proud to boast that in total, they televised 7,000 hours of Olympic coverage through all of their networks for the 2020 Summer games. The Paralympics got 1,200. How is that equal?

I know there might be people, particularly the athletes themselves, who embrace the Paralympics and the opportunity to compete at an elite level among their peers in a sport to which they have dedicated their lives. I have a lot of respect for the athletes' dedication, and I recognize that perhaps a disabled athlete competing alongside a non-disabled athlete might not be a fair fight. And lastly, I'm not saying there shouldn't be pride in the event itself. I do think that it is okay for disabled people to have their own thing. We are worthy of that. There is nothing "less than" about an event that features only disabled athletes. 

With that said, I can't help but come back to a persistent dream/hope that I have for the future. I would love that one day, the Olympics and Paralympics can become one event yet still retain the fairness of competition and the individual pride of each event. I want to see the events become even more integrated than they already are. So, for example, the opening and closing ceremonies would include both the non-disabled Olympians and disabled Paralympians. Then, during competition days, the individual events of each Olympics would be televised in alternating patterns. So after basketball, there is wheelchair basketball, or after a Paralympics track event, there is the Olympics track event. You get the idea.

To me, this kind of arrangement feels more truly equal and less separate. It also achieves a significant level of inclusion and integration for the athletes themselves and the viewing public. Part of the challenge in achieving disability rights in this country and the world is we are siloed off in our different communities. Real and lasting equality will only ever be achieved when we genuinely start to normalize disability, i.e., make society more comfortable seeing how disabled people live, excel, and learn more about our stories. Merging the Olympics and Paralympics would make a substantial cultural leap in accomplishing this goal.

Before I conclude this post I will address a possible elephant in the room, so to speak. Despite my hopes and dreams of integrating the two Olympic events, I realize that some (if not all) Paralympian and Olympic athletes may not want that to happen. I don't know any Paralympic or Olympic athletes, and in doing my research on this blog post, I didn't gain insight into how they would feel about that. After all, they are the ones competing. If any Paralympic or Olympic athletes happen to be reading this post, please comment below. I'd love to hear from you and maybe do a follow-up post to this one.