Do the Paralympics give a true representation of disabled people?

[mids2019]

I am watching the Paralympics in the Commonwealth Games and I am struck by the resilience, tenacity and strength of character of the para athletes. They truly are positive role models.

However is there danger of the Paralympics giving a false impression to the able bodied public that disability is 'not that bad' as superficially it looks like disabled people can train to become athletes and be fêted on the world stage?

Disability in this country can be categorised by minimal state benefit, poor state support and real chance of poverty . Of course you have the ongoing stigma of disabilities in general within society.

The Paralympians I have seen interviewed are very eloquent but there seem to be few working class athletes. Are we hiding the fact that having a severe disability from a poor family with multiple social needs may be as grim experience and Paralympians as a group could aid in hi ighlighting this.

I'm still not sure what OP actually wants or is trying to express with this thread. I think OP it may be best to take a step back, gather your thoughts and if you still have things to discuss around para sports start a new thread with a well thought out and clear opening post.

Wanna help disabled people, focus on other things like the appalling way in which they’re regularly left stranded on planes and trains by staff mistakes

Yes - and this regularly happens to the likes of Tanni Grey-Thompson as well. Being famous is no protection against it (happens to BBC journalist Frank Gardner with depressing regularity too) so imagine what it's like for people without that high profile.

Ok, I am giving up trying to explain this point of view because your approach is close-minded and patronising. You think you are right and you have heard nothing at all that anyone else has said. It is totally impossible to include everyone and everything in anything – Olympics, Paralympics, the Great British Bake Off… The Paralympics are not about representation, equality or any such thing – they are about elites. Just like the Olympics are. And anyway, most elite sport these days isn’t about anything other than money. If they could make money out of the Blackpool Donkey Derby, it would be an elite sport.

I was pretty close to calling you out on the “I do have disabled members of my family…” which sounds an awful lot like “I’m not racist, I know a black person”. But will you please STOP calling people “disabled” and “the disabled”??? People are not disabled. They are PEOPLE. First and foremost they are people. We are not defined by our disability – something that you seem to be totally unable to grasp. It has been considered rude to describe people in this way for a very long time now. People may have disabilities. They may have brown hair. We are not “disabled people” or “the disabled”. We are people with a range of health conditions none of which present in the same ways or the same degree of severity. We may have some degree of disability, but we are not disabled. We are simply, like everyone, differently-abled.

I’m out.

No I don’t think they do, there are people who are healthy but disabled and then there are those of us who are disabled and chronically unwell

in general but not always the athletes fall into the first category, I admire them and their achievements but the two groups are not comparable and I say that as someone who was once fit, healthy and not disabled

They're athletes. They're only representative of all disabled people in the same way that able bodied athletes are representative of all people.

@Jalisco
Apologies for using the term disabled instead if people with disabilities and the intention was certainly not to offend.

Your entire thread has offended...

I find "differently abled" offensive and ableiest @Jalisco personally I'm a disabled person or a person with a disability my disability doesn't define me but I'm not going to tart it up as differently abled.

Sorry to derail this already confusing thread. 😕

Well - for a start - the CWG aren't a true representation of para swimming or para sport.

They have 1 class per event.

My ds is a para swimmer. We aren't a rich family. We aren't in poverty either.

And of course it doesn't give a true representation of disability across the board. It's representative of what disabilities exist - for example my ds is the only swimmer in Britain with his condition and there's only 2 females.
Also representative of those best athletes with that condition.

Exactly the same way as AB swimming isn't representative of every AB swimmer out there.

The same with every sport.

One thing I noticed last week at British champs though is how much more diverse swimming is becoming as a sport across AB and para - and that will hopefully continue to develop.

My ds is a physically disabled classified para swimmer.

He also has asd.

So does another physically disabled swimmer he competes against. It's quite common if you have a neuro disability you also have neuro developmental diversity.

Also many of the S14 swimmers have autism. Some quite badly enough they attend specialist independent schools and have chaperones full time at competitions.

Oh and asd isn't a mental health condition 🙄

Some neuro diverse conditions do though

Of course it doesn’t, just as the olympics don’t represent people without disabilities.

Most sport at an elite level is expensive, apart from things like rugby and football, no matter if you have a disability or not.

My husband has arthrogyrposis, there have been olympians with it before, Lee Pearson and Will Bayley are the ones people tend to know, they of course aren’t there to represent people with arthrogryposis, they’re there because their great sports people who are skilled enough to qualify, not to tick a token box .

Some of us identified as disabled rather than as a person with a disability.

Why? Disabled people aren't on this planet as an advertisement for inclusivity.

You do realise they are as human as the Elite AB athletes who you think get to where they are due to training and their predisposed genetics.

It's exactly the same with disability swimming. Disability swimming/sport has different level of comps and inclusivity as AB sport.

Try doing some actual research and try listening what your saying before spouting such shite.

My ds isn't there as a disability swimmer to promote being disabled anymore than we should have Asian people only races or black peoples only races (where you can compete whether good or not) just to promote difference and minority groups.

Grass roots sports should be available for EVERYONE regardless.

This thread is sooooooo insulting.

For those who keep going on about ASD and people with learning difficulties not being able to compete.

Try reading up about categories T20 (athletics) and S14 (swimming) as a starting point.

And next time your all enjoying celebrating Great Britain winning Olympic gold etc - and cheering on Reece Dunn who's won it - try actually finding out about his diagnosis.

The issue here isn't para sport not being representative it's more about how the people who watch actually know nothing about it. Which is quite insulting because it means that they are just cheering on disabled athletes as some kind of "well done disabled person" rather than having a vested interest in the sports themselves and the athletes themselves.

The paralympics are actually discriminatory. As a B4 athlete, (visually impaired) I'm actually excluded from things like the paralympics. But need a person to help me (partly because of my neurological disabilities) take part in sport safely.

My IQ is too high to be a T20 / S14. But I have a lot of the same difficulties.

@titchy
The intension wasn't to offend.

Apologies if offence was taken.

I agree absolutely with this.

@TigerRag

Do the visually impaired not get a guide to assist?

Sorry you can't compete in the Paralympics.

We can get guides. But we're actually excluded from taking part in most competitions for visually impaired athletes for not being disabled enough.

Sorry OP I know you wrote this with good intentions but I am grossly offended. The Paralympics is elite sport. To compete and win you must be an incredible athlete, a wunderkind, best of the best. It is not an athlete's business to do anything but compete, dedicate themselves to the sport, make huge sacrifices. Being able bodied or disabled makes no difference to that fact.

The sports governing bodies for any sport like swimming need to deal with diversity, not the athletes, so it's the exact same need for diversity in all able bodied and disabled sports...by all means raise the need in the Paralympics but only if you raise it in the same sentence for the Olympics. Else it feels like you're saying 'let everyone have a go' in the context of the Paras as if it isn't as 'serious' as the Olympics. I'm sure you didn't mean it like it but it hit a nerve with me a bit!

Paralympic gold medalist and Sports Personality of the Year runner up Sophie Christiansen CBE uses her platform to raise awareness of such issues.

She has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair but also works for an investment bank in the city. She often speaks about the difficulties of using the trains to commute in a wheelchair and the issues with lack of assistance even when pre-arranged. She has also spoken of the massive financial costs of competing at this level and the vital role of charities such as riding for the disabled to open disabled sport to those who wouldn't otherwise have access.

OP it is also very annoying that you keep referring to all para sport as the paralympics. In fact in your OP you claim to be watching the paralympics in the Commonweath Games!