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The Tokyo Paralympic Games is the 16th such event. It started on August 24 and will end on September 5, following the Tokyo Olympics.
Due to the ongoing pandemic, both events had to be postponed for one year.
The Paralympics was originally called the Stoke-Mandeville Olympics. It was conceived during the London Summer Olympics in 1948, when a small group of injured soldiers and women participated in wheelchair archery competitions to take care of the events caused by the Second World War. And the wounded soldier.
The connection between the Paralympic Games and the Olympic Games was officially established in Rome in 1960 and was officially named the Paralympic Games for the first time.
In 1976, a winter version was conceived. The Paralympics gradually sought to truly parallel the major Olympics on an equal basis. The Seoul Olympics in 1988 was the first time that two events shared venues in the same city.
Cities seeking to host the Olympics also bid for these two events as a package, each with an opening and closing ceremony. As far as the events offered by elite athletes are concerned, the Paralympic Games have become larger than the Olympic Games in some respects, providing nearly 200 gold medals.
As part of such an important sports brand, the Paralympic Games can provide a much-needed platform for Paralympic athletes to showcase their talents at the highest level.
The Paralympic Games also serves as the backbone of the broader sports sector, providing support to various sports organizations that form part of the vast formal and informal ecosystem of grassroots organizations for the recruitment and training of athletes. In each Paralympic Work for several years before the meeting cycle.
People with disabilities may face considerable practical obstacles in their daily lives, let alone being elite athletes.
The additional cost of professional equipment and staffing made the situation worse.
Visually impaired athletes must consider the cost of hiring a guide, and for racing wheelchairs that meet the competition standards, athletes must pay between US$6,890 and US$27,500, a fee that only a few people can afford.
According to sports agency Two Circles, the entire sports sponsorship is worth 48 billion U.S. dollars, but athletes with disabilities can only get a small portion of it.
They also have fewer opportunities to earn bonuses or obtain commercial sponsorship, especially in non-Paralympic years.
However, this situation is gradually changing.
Dame Sarah Storey, the United Kingdom Paralympic athlete with 16 swimming and cycling gold medals, is cooperating with Skoda to establish her own cycling academy to change the pattern of the next generation of athletes.
Therefore, the Paralympics is an important vocal catalyst for obtaining funding from the private and public sectors for the 22 sports currently allowed to be held in summer events.
The relatively modest viewing numbers may cause advocates to worry that the popularity of the Paralympics has reached its peak.
For the Olympics, after the London and Rio Olympics have made encouraging progress in the audience level, the early data from the flagship broadcasters NBC and BBC in the West is disappointing for Tokyo.
NBC reported 15.5 million viewers, less than half of the 2012 Olympics, while the BBC had 36 million viewers, the lowest point in 13 years, worse than the 37.5 million viewers who watched the Beijing 2008 Olympics.
Although Japan has made great efforts to promote digital broadcasting, the public broadcaster NHK provided at least 1,000 hours of free event coverage.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the Paralympics will attract fewer people. Less than 24% of the Japanese audience watched the opening ceremony, and more than 54% of the audience watched the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics.
This is due to a series of factors, including more fragmented media, time lag in Europe, North and South America, and interruptions caused by the pandemic, which affected the broadcast schedule and led to gameplay.
This may cause problems for the thousands of Paralympic athletes participating in the competition and the millions of Paralympics inspired by it, making the impact of this event a forgotten Olympic juggling show.
The Paralympic Games is a more organized event, which does not help.
Even before the pandemic, safety must be of the utmost importance to resolve various obstacles, including adjusting Olympic facilities to ensure they can be accessed, equipped with qualified guides when necessary, and providing the correct customized technical equipment for stadiums.
The recent automatic shuttle bus accident in Tokyo at the Athletes’ Village injured a visually impaired athlete. This is an example of what can go wrong.
Due to the pandemic, other restrictions have been imposed, including restrictions on the number of people allowed in Tokyo. The lack of flexibility leads to decisions that may appear cold and ruthless.
American Paralympic swimmer and deaf-mute Becca Meyers had to withdraw six weeks before the competition when Paralympic officials told her that her mother would not be allowed to work as a personal care assistant (PCA). ) Accompany her.
On the contrary, due to COVID regulations, the entire U.S. swimming team had to share a PCA that they were not familiar with. The predictable anger damaged the image of the Paralympics as a place of tolerance and common sense.
Another challenge is that cheating is more likely, which may undermine the spirit of the sport and the games.
In the Paralympics, there are as many as 539 independent events out of 22 events to ensure fair competition. However, this also opens the door for some people to try to fake their degree of disability in order to participate in certain activities and gain an unfair advantage.
In the 2000 Sydney Paralympic Games, there was a scandal. During the mentally handicapped basketball game, 10 of Spain’s 12 basketball players were found to be completely free of disabilities.
They were exposed by an undercover reporter and were eventually forced to return their medals in shame.
As a result, the Paralympic Committee temporarily cancelled all competitions for mentally handicapped athletes until the 2012 London Olympics, depriving hundreds of athletes of the opportunity to compete due to the selfish behavior of those without disabilities.
Another challenge is the implementation of doping regulations. This can be particularly complicated because some athletes take prescription drugs for medical reasons. This must be managed through a therapeutic use exemption system to allow disabled athletes to participate in the competition.
The wide range of categories also makes testing more difficult.
At the Rio Olympics, 4,913 samples were analyzed, while the Rio Paralympics only had 1,687 samples, although the bad detection rate of the Paralympics was slightly higher, 0.71% and 0.59%, respectively.
Despite all the obstacles and risks, there are still some very encouraging signs for the Paralympics.
Millions of Japanese people are watching the Paralympics, which provides a new and unique opportunity to encourage social inclusion and popularize the movement of people with disabilities in the region.
This Olympics is the largest ever, with 4,537 athletes participating, nearly 200 more than the 2016 Rio Olympics and far more than the original 600 athletes in Rome in 1960.
Paris and Brisbane will host the Paralympics in 2024 and 2028, respectively.
Both are modern and export-oriented cities, both firmly committed to promoting sports for the disabled, and should be reliable stewards for the further development of Paralympic sports.
Holding a splendid Paralympic Games helps to enhance the image of many elite Paralympic athletes, because they will become new brand ambassadors and continue to be powerful role models, advocate for social inclusion, and educate a wider audience about what they usually do. Reported life experiences and increase the voices that are not often heard.
Given that people with disabilities continue to face numerous challenges in society, there is still a need to change attitudes.
Even those who participated in the Paralympics-literally Superman-continue to be discriminated against. Former U.S. President Donald Trump publicly stated that the Paralympic Games were “unsightly” when hosting Paralympic athletes, and he had mocked a journalist with a disability before. This is the best example.
Therefore, it is more important than ever to educate the ignorant Paralympic athletes about their achievements.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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