"Truth is, we’ve been here all along"

September 5, 2016 9:36 PM

Amid a potential financial disaster and accessibility problems, on Wednesday, September 7, the 15th Summer Paralympic Games will begin in Rio de Janeiro. The Rome 1960 Paralympic Games included only eight events. At Rio 2016, athletes will compete in 23 scheduled sports. A list of broadcasters by country is available here. Some sports only have one classification, while others have several...

IPC: "There are some sports that only have one sport class (e.g. ice sledge hockey or powerlifting). On the other hand, due to the different disciplines (running, jumping, throwing events) and because the sport includes athletes of all 10 eligible impairments, IPC Athletics has 52 sport classes."

Explanatory guide to Paralympic classification (pdf)

The summer Paralympic sports scheduled for Rio 2016 are:

Archery

Athletics

Badminton

Wheelchair Basketball

Boccia

Canoe

Cycling

Wheelchair Dance Sport

Equestrian

Wheelchair Fencing

Football 5-a-side

Football 7-a-side

Goalball

Judo

Powerlifting

Rowing

Wheelchair rugby

Sailing

Shooting

Swimming

Table tennis

Taekwondo

Wheelchair Tennis

Triathlon

Sitting volleyball

As of September 5, it appears that there will be fewer empty seats for Paralympic events in Rio than than was earlier feared.

But the last-minute scramble to fill those seats and the last-minute travel funding crisis created by failures of the Rio 2016 organizing committee - which would have had a disproportionate impact on athletes from poorer countries - demonstrates how "For disabled people like me, it's clear that the Paralympics are nothing more than an afterthought."

In the United States, for example, "The United States Olympic Committee awards $25,000 to every American who wins an Olympic gold versus $5,000 for every Paralympic gold; $15,000 for Olympic silver versus $3,500 for Paralympic silver; and $10,000 for Olympic bronze versus $2,500 for Paralympic bronze."

Emily Rapp Black, in her New York Times piece My Paralympic Blues, writes:

I am not a Paralympian. Like all the other cyclists, I’m here because I have fitness goals. I buy magazines that promise “Your Best Body Yet!” I cycle because I’m vain. I like my miniskirts. But more than that, as a person with a disability, I’m playing the long game. This body is the only one I’ve got, and I need to take care of it.

Although Paralympians are getting the attention they have long deserved — more media coverage; more professional sponsorship and endorsements — the tenor of the conversation about these athletes and about disabled bodies in general makes it clear that they are misunderstood by most of the world and, save for this brief period, largely unseen.

During the 12 days of the Paralympic Games, it will seem that we have sprung directly from the technological imagination of the 21st century. Those iron feet! Those wheelchair athletes and their superbuff biceps! But after the medals are awarded we will retreat underground again — into normalcy, I guess, which is in fact a kind of oblivion when you have a body that is either an object of pity or valorized as “super” in order to be acceptable. It seems that, temporarily, able-bodied people make a virtue of their sudden awareness of disabled athletes. Truth is, we’ve been here all along.

posted by mandolin conspiracy (13 comments total)

The United States is one of the only first world countries that doesn't fund its olympic athletes. Given the absolute gobs of money a country like Australia puts in via the AIS it seems absurd that professional athletes need to have a day job or be famous enough to get paid independently.

But welcome to America, home of the self-reliant and those magically able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, a normally impossible feat!
posted by Talez at 10:07 PM on September 5, 2016

Well, I'm psyched for fencing! Thanks for the link.
I'd thought it started immediately after and kept climbing the link onCBC and finally gave up on there being a stream
I will not be surprised if the fencing has about as much Paralympic coverage in Canada as fencing olympic coverage which also just had a stream of some matches and little else.
posted by chapps at 11:36 PM on September 5, 2016

Looking forward to reading this. A high school classmate is volunteering there and has been posting on Facebook for months about how excited he is to be going.
posted by TedW at 5:22 AM on September 6, 2016

Are these going to be aired on TV at all? I would be very interested in watching.

I would also like to reiterate a comment of mine from a previous Olympics thread that the Paralympics should not be treated as separate from the non-Paralympics. Have them together so these athletes can 1) have the recognition they deserve and 2) be included with and have the same respect as the non-Paralympics athletes.
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:13 AM on September 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I've always wondered why they're not just part of the regular Olympics as events. I assume it's because it would place too many people in the facilities at once, but that's just a guess.
posted by holborne at 7:37 AM on September 6, 2016

The United States is one of the only first world countries that doesn't fund its olympic athletes. Given the absolute gobs of money a country like Australia puts in via the AIS it seems absurd that professional athletes need to have a day job or be famous enough to get paid independently.

Of all the things that the U.S. doesn't spend its money on, funding the literal playing of games seems like it is right to be well down on the priority lists.

I could see an exception for paralympic atheletes, especially those whose impairment was caused by government action. I'm thinking wounded vets, of course, but obviously that would extend to, say, victims of police violence. I might even rope in victims of regulatory failure (e.g. thalidomide babies come to mind but thalidomide was less of a problem in the U.S. than elsewhere).

But overall, there's no reason for sports to be receiving even more subsidies.
posted by sparklemotion at 8:04 AM on September 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I've always wondered why they're not just part of the regular Olympics as events. I assume it's because it would place too many people in the facilities at once, but that's just a guess.

The Paralympic Games and the International Paralympic Committee are separate from but allied with the Olympic Games and the International Olympic Committee (the President of the IPC is an ex officio member of the IOC, much like the various other sport federations' heads). They have an agreement that host city candidates for the Olympic Games must also bid to host the Paralympic Games, but are otherwise different entities.

(The U.S. Olympic Committee is rare among National Olympic Committees in that it is also the National Paralympic Committee -- most NPCs are similarly separate from their NOCs.)
posted by Etrigan at 8:11 AM on September 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

The new Olympic Channel will have "Live-Feeds and daily Highlights", according to their Events page. Hopefully they'll give more details.

(also, it's perhaps the best thing the IOC did for "amateur" sports in a long while - along a lot of archive footage and sport 101s, it will broadcast a few world-class events that would be hard to find otherwise - canoe slalom, table tennis, archery, fencing and a lot of badminton will be featured until the end of the year. So, for once, yay IOC?)
posted by lmfsilva at 10:59 AM on September 6, 2016

...yay IOC?

Mmmm. Not so fast:

IOC head Thomas Bach to miss Paralympics opening ceremony
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:22 PM on September 6, 2016

Also, women's tennis at the US Open.
posted by king walnut at 10:40 PM on September 6, 2016

For reference, we're kicking off a FanFare sportsy chatter thread for the games just like we did for the Olympics last month, right here.
posted by cortex at 11:46 AM on September 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Re : IOC head Thomas Bach to miss Paralympics opening ceremony.
It couldn't possibly be because the Rio de Janeiro Police want to question him as a prime witness in the Hickey ticketing scandal. Scumbag.
posted by adamvasco at 5:11 PM on September 7, 2016

To further promote this farce where Rio 2016 have taken the money from the Paralympic budget to cover shortfalls in the Olympic Budget the magazine Vogue turned Brazilian models into amputees using photoshop because obviously disadvantaged people are icky.
In spite of the fortune spent on security here during the Olympics, to protect the gringos not the locals, 39 people were killed in Rio de Janeiro that the world´s press largely ignored.
Panem et Circenses.
posted by adamvasco at 5:31 PM on September 7, 2016