Paralympics 2020 a celebration of ability in adversity

We hear a lot about Parasport during the Paralympics, but apart from that where is the coverage and news about the success of our disabled athletes during the Paralympics or world championships. Parasport, I believe, is incredible what they can achieve.

The role of sport we have seen over the last few years rise, these I believe are more impressive than say, abled-bodied athletes. These people like their abled-bodied counterparts face the same physical challenges as well as the ones caused by disability. But the reason why we don’t see Parasport is there isn’t the money for sponsors or broadcasters.

Take my condition, Cerebral Palsy, this is a wide-ranging condition that affects people in different ways from wheelchair-bound people to people who make look normal. CP is a group of neuro conditions that affects moment, balance, coordination, memory and speech, and in some cases can cause other conditions which can be life-threatening/limiting.

Parasport has never in my view got the support of the public, it’s a catch 22 if you don’t give it the airtime it’s never going to capture the public imagination. In an age when many of the sporting events are on Sky Sports or BT Sport, maybe to fill weekends afternoons.

There is a demand for Parasport, the IPC viewing figures carried out by Nielson shows the PyeongChang games had 2.02 billion TV viewers in 2018. Although that was down on 2014, I believe time zone factors may have been one of the reasons for the drop.

In the past, I’ve mentioned the origins of Parasport and Dr Ludwig Guttman who created the precursor to the modern Paralympic Games which officially started as we know them today in 1960. But it’s easy to think that these events (normally) happen every two years, with the alternation between the summer and winter games.

For me, it can be a reminder of what disabled people are capable of doing, when they are given the right opportunities to compete. But we know there have been controversies and there will always be those who fake impairments to get into the Paralympics, but the focus should be on what these athletes can do.

There are many classifications, but we need to not worry about knowing the different groups in-depth, but have a broad understanding of how disabilities impacts the person. The games aren’t once every four years, but these people have to manage their disability while training in much the same way as the able-bodied athletes.

Parasport shouldn’t be seen as adapted or special, it needs to be treated in the same way as an abled bodied sport by the public. To do that all-year-round day-to-day coverage as part of the ecosystem of TV, we need to celebrate them as athletes beyond their disability.

In my view, there isn’t a market for parasport because no broadcaster has tried outside the Paralympics, world and euros athletics and swimming championship to make broadcasters want to give more airtime to disability sport. We need to build that audience.

I always remember my conversations with Ben Rushgrove, who won silver in Beijing and bronze in London, when I was at school, I used to do these talent spotting days. I believe from listening to many para-athletes over the years they have used sport to help them manage their conditions.

You can argue that in some ways the six-seven weeks every two years, especially this year with the pandemic, these games come at a difficult time for the world, are a chance to unite, challenge prejudice and see the amazing sport. Many of these athletes have needed to cope with things like shielding, trying to balance that with training and so many questions about whether

The Paralympics motto is “Spirit in Motion”, with its symbol being in the shape of an Agito (which is Latin for “I move / I shake / I stir”), which is the name given to an asymmetrical crescent specially designed for the Paralympic movement. For many people like myself, physical activity is important to maintain my mobility.

I think we don’t need to worry as viewers about the different classifications in detail, there is three main groups physical, visual, and intellectual impairment, broken down by the different levels of impairment or deficiency. The classification is designed to group athletes with similar levels of impairment together, thus creating a level playing field.

Athletes with one of these disabilities can compete in the Paralympics though not every sport can allow for every disability category. Then they are designed to try and group athletes together by their impairment, but sometimes that can lead to cheating, this however is very small.

There is a common misconception of what ‘Para’ means, it doesn’t mean paraplegic, it actually comes from the Greek word meaning ‘besides’ or ‘alongside’ the Olympics. Since Seoul 1988 the IOC and IPC have been working together to make sure the games take place in the same city.

Over the ten days off the games, 540 events in twenty-two sports with 4,400 athletes will take place in Tokyo, these aren’t going to be ‘normal’ given the pandemic and the people taking part are at higher risk from Covid-19, its almost forgotten about the hidden army we of personal carers for the athletes.

The Hill reported that congress has written to the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee to classify care assistants as essential staff. This comes as Becca Meyers, a deaf and blind swimmer with Usher syndrome, dropped out of the Tokyo Games because she was denied her own PCA.

There is mixed opinion whether the Para games should merge into an extended Olympic Games, while I’m normally I am always up for equality I think there wouldn’t be enough focus or exposer like they currently have, writing for USA Today a columnist said they are “In some ways, this separate competition feels like a sideshow, a reflection of a painful reality: we still think of disability as something other.”

Maybe having a month-long games where the Para programme is mixed in will make it feel more inclusive, but its likely that for the broadcasters and media the event will not get the exposer needed. But maybe the solution is like we see with the Olympics, are for things like world and continental championships, like athletics and swimming, to be held close together and in the same city, like we see with the Olympic and Paralympics.

In some way parasport, wheelchairs and blades, is like F1 at the cutting edge of technology pushing towards lightweight and strength, as they look to push to be faster. The focus to me always seems to be on the journey and the sporting achievements, as we see with the Olympic, though a little bit of the disability has to play a role to change attitudes, these are still athletes and I think from what I have read since Atlanta 1996 the movement has grown from an almost sideshow into an event in their own right.

London is seen by many as the watershed moment, these are the first games I remember actively watching, I think while the legacy hasn’t been perfect. But the summer of 2012 kind of in my view rolled into one event, I think that was partly to do with the marketing and Channel 4.

Channel 4 had a brilliant marketing campaign “Thanks for the warm-up”, they have been brilliant in raising the profile of Parasport and given it the same platform like the Olympics. We needed that to give the equal platform to the Olympics, I feel every two years with the summer/winter games as well as the athletics/swimming world and euros championships that’s it.

You need to enjoy the next year, as we have both the summer and winter games, immediately after the games we have the World Para Swimming, as well as the World Para Athletics Championships. But then what? Do we then have to wait till Paris to see these athletes again?

But I hope with Beijing under six months away and the world championships in Kobe a year after Tokyo, we maybe get some momentum off the back of these games heading into the Commonwealth Games where some Parasport takes place if there was maybe exposure, your get more viewers?

I think the dip in figures in Rio and Pyeongchang were partly because of a reduction in the number of sports being filmed live, time zones etc. I expect the same will be the case for Tokyo and Beijing, but hopefully, with the hour time difference in Paris, we will get more coverage throughout the day.

I remember a line from the closing ceremony of the Olympics, “The fact these games are happening are at a moment we have needed them the most.” The same are true with these Paralympics, I feel knowing the pandemic has been hard for everyone, but these athletes have had faced the challenges of needing to train at home, their health conditions meaning they are at higher risk if they catch Covid-19.

But we should be grateful that these amazing people, not disabled people, are having to perform at an incredible level, so off the back of an incredibly successful Olympics can Paralympics GB carry on the successful summer of sport…