Paralympics: They matter, actually (and a lot)!

The Paralympics is the forgotten sister of the Olympics. Younger and less popular but with great importance: this event actually is a much bigger agent for change than the Olympics themselves. Why? Because every host country must adapt its infrastructure to include accessibility – or be heavily criticized for failing to do so, which is quite common.

Even the recent Paris 2024 Paralympics still left a lot to be desired: the city lacked infrastructure and accessibility, a point of content and criticism from tourists to paraathletes to international committees. For comparison’s sake, the Tokyo subway station was 96% accessible to international standards) by their Olympics+Paralympics combo back in 2020 – this without accounting for the fact that the Tokyo subway system is one, if not the, most advanced and complex in the world. On the other hand, the Paris metro is still only 3% accessibleand this is after the events are over. This was even not so subtly criticized in one of the speeches in the Paralympics ending ceremony: “we’d love to one day see the ‘most beautiful city in the world’ (Paris) be fully accessible”. This was the moment in the speech that made my jaw drop. It’s quite rare to see the host country actually criticized in a speech.

Another moment I loved in the speech was when one of our Brazilian athletes, Gabrielzinho, was mentioned by name. You have no idea how surprised I was! It’s quite a feat to be mentioned by name in a speech that is not even by your own country! For those curious, Gabriel (nicknamed Gabrielzinho by Brazilians, literally Little Gabriel, a common term of endearment here) is a Parathelete in the swimming modality. He promised – and delivered – to get three (!) gold medals in Paris 2024. In fact, Brazil ended the games in the top 5 – an incredible feat for a country still in development that does not invest or care for Paratheletes nor Paralympics in general.

Together with many beautiful stories of parathletes all over the world and Brazil, something was heavily emphasized by all of them: the lack of accessibility. From rich cities to cities dealing in poverty, this was a major theme. The limitations many of the parathletes – and people with disabilities, the elderly, people with small children and pets – suffer are the same: uneven or broken sidewalks, holes in asphalts, lack of visual and hearing aids in the cities and much more.

Another thing heavily criticized was another limitation – but this one had nothing to do with the physical aspect. Nope, this was about the limits that society (people) force on people with disabilities: the disbelief and lack of interest in them and their abilities. Many parathletes around the world (and all Brazilians) faced complete barriers from day one: lack of investment, lack of interest, disbelief, lack of aid and infrastructure, lack of training and coaches, and so forth. They had to train by themselves at times or find places to train.

A phrase by Júlio César Agripino, world record breaker and gold in athleticism in the 5000m class T11, is still in my mind after all these days: “This shows the power people who came from the slums have. When I started running, there was only a single small football field and my will. With a lot of willpower I got to where I am today. I didn’t have any support or strength from my community or city. I hope that now they'll finally fix that little football field. I don’t want popularity or visibility for myself; what I want is to make a different to my neighborhood and my city”. It’s incredible how even after breaking the world record and getting gold, he’s still unsure but hopeful that maybe the city he came from will decide to fix that football field – nevermind the broken sidewalks and asphalts with holes.

This shows that the limitations aren’t always just physical. Those matter, absolutely, but society also needs to grow and understand that more needs to be reviewed, needs to be done.

The Paralympics opening ceremony had some great moments, especially one where a dancer starts by dancing with two crutches and then a group follows. As a person who uses crutches, I had never seen, to that day, my walking aid as something that could be… beautiful, or artistic. It was incredible. The ceremony is available for free on the YouTube channel and I highly recommend checking that part at least.

On the other hand, the ending ceremony was just so very disappointing. While the very beginning had some great speeches (the ones I mentioned before), after the pass to the US (the next host), everything became dull. It just became a show with a DJ and a stage with lights. If you watched that, what would let you know that hey, that’s not some random electronic live show, that’s actually the Paralympics ceremony? Sadly, nothing. And that was a very big missed opportunity for France, actually. These international events are the chance to show your culture, values, artistry and history – a level of visibility worldwide unmatched. For those who studied International Relations as well, this is the so-called ‘soft power’ (based on abstract values and culture rather than economic or military strenght). This was a big change for France to showcase its culture to close off the ceremony wonderfully, but it clearly showed something the French parathletes themselves criticized: lack of interest.

However, the public themselves was very interested 2.15 million tickets were purchased for Paris Paralympics, exceeding Rio 2016 sales.. The stages were all packed with people and it was heartwarming seeing the very strong and loud cheers for the parathletes. Rio 2016 had many issues and the lack of audience was a big one (aside infrastructure, cost miscalculations, falling roofs and changing pool water colors – but that’s content for another article, possibly). So it was incredible seeing the jump in audience and interest in Paris 2024.

People cared. People cheered. People stayed well into the night to watch the games live in France.

But what about in Brazil?

Now that’s another issue altogether. While the Olympics games were shown on free-to-air TV, the same treatment was (again) not given to the Paralympics. But this time around, people raged. They demanded to see more on social media, criticized the monopoly on TV stations (Globo) that held all rights to transmit and didn’t share, criticized YouTube channels such as Cazetv that did air the Olympics but suddenly said they didn’t have the right to air the Paralympics blaming Globo for this.

But social media was alight with this discussion. “Not able to transmit due to lack of interest” doesn’t cut it anymore in the 21st century in 2024. There’s clear interest from the people, the problem is in the still very out of date Brazilian media – a big criticism from reporters, sports analysts, international media casters and, of course, the Brazilian people. Clearly a lot still needs changing. I’m hopeful – but sadly not optimistic – that LA 2028 will be different and by then Brazilian media outlets will be up to date with actual current trends and air the Paralympic Games. If not for true understanding of the importance of the event, at least due to lack of audience and heavy criticism thrown their way. We can only hope.

The Paralympic games, while not as popular or as old as the Olympics – in fact, it actually started in the UK, not in Greece at all! – are in fact big game changers and a singular opportunity that a country can use to really up its infrastructure and accessibility game. Of course, not all benefit from that. Paris still has a long way to go to be truly accessible. But as Paris citizens and tourists have expressed, there’s now hope the games will truly bring change to the city.

Did you follow the Paralympics? What did you think?

I made some videos about the games in Portuguese with more of my opinions:

• Opening ceremony thoughts + Part 2
• An important reflection on the Paralympics
• Lack of interest by Brazilia media outlets
• Parathlete quote about accessibility - yeah, it does matter!
• Manga Real recommendation
• Ending ceremony thoughts

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The images in this post (aside the printscreen of my Instagram profile) don't belong to me - the sources are included and linked, the header was made with Adobe Firefly.