BM Disability and Sports Blog #2

    

Before reviewing this week's content, I never thought much about what the word “para” in Paralympics meant. I would assume that a part of me may have considered the words “paralyzed”, “paraplegic” or even the word “paraprofessional” that I have heard in relation to disability and special education. Reflecting on this, I am not too proud of myself. It seems like implicit biases from the past may have come lurking into my assumptions of what “para” in “Paralympics” really means. It also makes me start to wonder what other people might think it means.

After reviewing this week's content, I learned that the true meaning of Paralympics is to be parallel to the Olympic games. This means that the Paralympics are games run alongside the Olympics. The word “para” is actually Greek and means “beside”. Unfortunately I also learned that even though the intention was for the Paralympics to run side by side with the Olympics, that did not actually happen until years after the first Paralympic games began. The first Paralympics happened in 1960, but it wasn't until 1988 for the summer Paralympics to coexist with the Olympics, and 1992 for the winter games. Fortunately since then, all of the Paralympics and Olympics have been held in the same city every four years as originally planned. 

This rocky history shows how even when people with disabilities overcome barriers of accessibility, prejudice, and discrimination for the Paralympics to even be created, they still are not given the equal opportunity for them to be held parallel to the Olympics. The games were created for people with disabilities to have a chance to showcase their talents in their respective sports, and it is unfortunate that they were not always accepted in the same ways as the able bodied athletes are. 

https://youtu.be/SgH_RwI92RA (Paralympic hype video for this years games.)

https://www.paralympic.org/video/it-s-time-milano-cortina-2026-let-journey-begin

In lighter news, the recent 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics displayed a major shift from the past. More hours of Paralympic media coverage was presented than ever before, and for the first time ever, all 22 Paralympic sports were broadcast. Viewership was also up in the recent games, even though the Paralympics still had half of the viewers that the Olympics did, the numbers had never even come that close before. Although these statistics show that there has been definite improvement in the inclusion of the Paralympics into the Olympic season, they also tell us that there is still so much more work to be done. There is still a major gap in viewership, most likely due to preconceived notions that the public has about athletes who are disabled. It is up to fellow advocates to continue to push the message that the Paralympics are just as entertaining and important to watch as the Olympics are, and we need to do better for these athletes across the globe.