Paralympic Games: A Forum for Disabled Athletes

▪ 2009

      On Sept. 6–17, 2008, nearly 4,000 athletes with disabilities representing 147 National Paralympic Committees (NPCs) competed in the Paralympic Games in Beijing shortly after the Olympic Games had concluded. (See Special Report (Games of the XXIX Olympiad ).) The high profile accorded the 2008 Paralympics was judged by many to be a turning point in the drive for heightened respect for disabled athletes everywhere.

      Paralympic athletes traditionally compete in six different disability groups—amputee, cerebral palsy, visual impairment, spinal cord injuries, intellectual disability, and “les autres” (athletes whose disability does not fit into one of the other categories, including dwarfism). Within each group, athletes are further divided into classes on the basis of the type and extent of their disabilities, though individual athletes may be reclassified at later competitions if their physical status changes.

      The first major sports competition for athletes with disabilities was organized by Sir Ludwig Guttman for British World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries and was held in England in 1948. A follow-up competition took place in 1952, with athletes from The Netherlands joining the British competitors. In 1960 the first quadrennial Olympic-style Games for disabled athletes were held in Rome; the quadrennial Winter Games were added in 1976, in Sweden. Beginning with the 1988 Olympic Games, held in Seoul (and the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France), the Paralympics were held at the Olympic venues and used the same facilities. In 2001 the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee (founded in 1989) agreed on the practice of “one bid, one city,” in which every city that bids to host the Olympics also bids to hold the related Paralympics.

      The size and diversity of the Paralympic Games increased greatly over the years. At the 2004 Athens Paralympics, more than 3,800 athletes representing 136 NPCs participated in 19 sports: archery, athletics (track and field), boccia, cycling, equestrian, association football (both 7-a-side and 5-a-side), goalball, judo, powerlifting, sailing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, volleyball (sitting), and wheelchair competition in basketball, fencing, rugby, and tennis. China captured the most medals, with a total of 141 (63 gold). At the most recent Winter Games, the 2006 Turin (Italy) Winter Paralympics, more than 470 athletes representing 39 NPCs competed in five sports: Alpine and cross-country skiing, ice sledge hockey, biathlon, and wheelchair curling.

      The Beijing Paralympics, which added rowing to the schedule, handed out 1,431 medals (473 gold) in 20 sports to athletes from 76 NPCs, with China (211 medals), Great Britain (102), and the United States (99) topping the medals table. Top competitors included South African double amputee Oscar (“Blade Runner”) Pistorius, a world-record-setting T44 sprinter who had dominated much of the news prior to the opening ceremony. In May he was granted permission by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to try out for the Olympic Games. Critics had suggested that Pistorius's high-tech prosthetic legs would actually give him an advantage over able-bodied runners. Although he ran a personal-best 400-m race of 46.25 sec, he failed by 0.70 sec to qualify for South Africa's Olympic team. He rebounded at the Paralympics, where he won three gold medals (100-, 200-, and 400-m T44) and set one world record and two additional Paralympic records. Other significant Paralympians included swimmer Daniel Dias of Brazil, who topped the overall rankings with nine medals (four gold); Australian swimmers Matthew Cowdrey and Peter Leek, with eight medals each; and South African swimmer Natalie du Toit, who won all five of her events. Du Toit's personal story was seen as an inspiration to other disabled athletes. She had hoped to qualify for the Olympics in Athens when in 2001 she lost the lower part of one leg in a motorcycle accident and switched to the Paralympics instead. In 2008 Du Toit made history as the first person with a partial leg to swim against able-bodied competitors at the Olympic Games, where she was 16th out of 24 finishers in the new 10-km open-water race.

Melinda C. Shepherd

* * *