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disqualifying the paralympics 2000 by Russ Kick (russ@mindpollen.com) - December 28, 2000 |
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| The world's second-largest amateur sporting event just ended. Elite athletes from around the globe competed against each other in dozens of events, shattering records and bringing home medals for 68 countries. But I missed this 12-day event, and chances are you did, too. You see, the United States doesn’t carry broadcasts of the Paralympics. Neither does Australia, which is strange considering it's the country hosting this event. The media in many countries faithfully ignore it, and sponsors stay away in droves. In 1960 the Paralympics first brought together the world's greatest disabled athletes to compete in Olympic-style events. Since the 1970 Games, all forms of disability have been incorporated, so that athletes compete in one of six categories: amputee, wheelchair, cerebral palsy, sight impairment, intellectual disability, and "les autres" (French for "the others," a catch-all category for people with other forms of disability). Within each category, athletes compete against others of similar functionality. For example, blindness is divided into three levels, and cerebral palsy is comprised of eight levels. For the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney, Australia (October 18th-29th), 4,000 athletes from 125 countries competed in eighteen sports, including archery, basketball, cycling, equestrian events, fencing, football, powerlifting, shooting, swimming, volleyball, and--for the first time - sailing and wheelchair rugby. Anyone who's watched disabled athletes in action knows that their determination and competitiveness easily equal that of their able-bodied counterparts. And not only are they highly skilled within disabled sports, but many of these athletes perform at or near the Olympic level. Nigerian amputee Ajibola Adoeye is just nine-tenths of a second off the Olympic record for the men’s 100m dash. Some Paralympic powerlifters bench press over 273 kilos (approximately 602 pounds), and Australia's Troy Sachs scored 42 points in a basketball game in the 1996 Games, which is higher than the Olympic record for a single player. In the recently-concluded Games, Australia brought home the most medals (149), including by far the most gold medals (63). Britain came in second overall with 131, and the US brought home the third-largest number of medals (109). When the countries are ranked by the values of their medals, though, the US slides to fifth, behind Spain and Canada. This poor showing is understandable when you realize that the US Olympic Committee (USOC) absolutely shafts its Paralympic athletes. If you want to see the second-class status of disabled people displayed in a microcosm, look no further. The USOC typically gives a paltry 1.5 percent of its outgoing money to disabled athletes during non-Olympic years, and this year it didn't give any money at all to Paralympic athletes. The Executive Committee of the USOC doesn't contain a representative of the Paralympics, and only four of 122 people on the Board of Directors represent disabled athletes. The USOC won't insure disabled athletes, nor does it allow them to use its residential training facilities. Every US Olympian who wins a medal gets up to $25,000 per medal, but Paralympian medalists get nothing. Many countries house their Paralympians in the Olympic Village, but the US does not. Other countries allow their Paralympians to march in the opening ceremony of the Olympics, but the US does not. The USOC doesn't even provide Paralympic athletes with full regulation uniforms. In the 1992 Olympics, the USOC made sponsors - such as Visa, Kodak, and McDonalds - spend part of their money on the Paralympics, but for the 2000 games - nothing. All those corporate bucks go to the Olympics. Due to a multimillion dollar discrimination lawsuit against it, the USOC is divesting itself of the Paralympics. Although there are positive aspects to this, the new organization will inevitably have huge monetary problems, not to mention the fact that the USOC's actions smack of separate and unequal segregation. In short, the treatment of US Paralympic athletes is a national disgrace, and the global treatment of the Paralympics as a whole isn’t much better. I only wish I had thought to do this dossier sooner, so that more people could've at least followed the Games on the Web. Still, the 2002 winter Paralympics will be here before you know it, and the Paralympics naturally will follow the 2004 Olympics in Athens. In the meantime, I urge everyone to pressure the Olympics TV station (NBC in the US) and sports channels in their country to devote coverage to future Paralympics. Let's also raise a glass to the world-class athletes who struggle with little or no help for four years to compete in an event that much of the world ignores. |
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The Aimee Mullins Fan Page Disinformation Dossier On The Anti-Olympics Protests 2000 The Paralympics Paradox Bad Sports Australian Paralympic Committee International Paralympic Committee Paralympics At The 2002 Winter Games Paralympics At The 2000 Olympics Canadian Paralympic Committee British Paralympic Association WeMedia Webcast Deal Telstra's Olympic & Paralympic Games Web 2000 Paralympic Games On Yahoo! Paralympic Preview Muffy Davis: The Challenge Of Optimism Paralympic Magazine United States Olympic Committee |
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