The Paralympic Games as a force for peaceful coexistence

Abstract

The International Olympic Committee advocates that one of the three ultimate goals of Olympism is to build a peaceful and better world through sport. The International Paralympic Committee, on the other hand, is slightly less grandiose when stating its key aim of enabling Paralympic athletes to achieve sporting excellence and to inspire and excite the world. However, it does state that in inspiring and exciting the world, its aim is to contribute to a better world for all people with a disability. The objective of this paper is, therefore, firstly to outline some of the reasons why the world might need to be made better for people with disabilities. It will then look at some of the ways the Paralympic Games have contributed to this process since their inception as the Stoke Mandeville Games in the late 1940s. Overall, the objective of this paper is to highlight the ways in which disability sport and the Paralympic Games, in particular, have helped to break down some of the perceptual barriers that exist amongst non-disabled members of society regarding people with disabilities, thus promoting greater inclusion of people with disabilities and allowing them to live in more peaceful coexistence with their peers.

Notes

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² DePauw, ‘The (In)Visibility of DisAbility’.

³ Oliver, ‘Re-Defining Disability’.

⁴ Morris, Pride Against Prejudice.

⁵ Brown and Smith, ‘Whose “Ordinary Life” is it Anyway?’

⁶ O'Donnell, Introduction to Sociology.

⁷ Ibid., 99.

⁸ Wendell, The Rejected Body, 117.

⁹ Devine, ‘Inclusive Leisure Services and Research’, 4.

¹⁰ Morris, Pride Against Prejudice.

¹¹ Drake, ‘Charities, Authority and Disabled People’; Imrie, ‘Rethinking’, 263.

¹² Imrie, ‘Rethinking’.

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴ Birkenbach, Physical Disability and Social Policy.

¹⁵ French, ‘Disability, Impairment, or Somewhere in between’, 17.

¹⁶ Priestley, ‘Constructions and Creations’.

¹⁷ Northern Officer Group, The Disability Discrimination Act.

¹⁸ Shakespeare and Watson, ‘Defending the Social Model’, 299.

¹⁹ Priestley, ‘Constructions and Creations’.

²⁰ Office for Disability Issues, Employment Figures.

²¹ Oliver, Understanding Disability, 115.

²² Oliver, ‘Disability and Dependency’.

²³ French, ‘Disabled Health and Welfare Professionals’.

²⁴ Hargreaves, Heroines of Sport.

²⁵ Seymour, Body Alterations, cited in Hargreaves, Heroines of Sport, 185.

²⁶ Legg et al., ‘Historical Overview of the Paralympics’.

²⁷ Craven, ‘Paralympic Athletes Inspiring and Exciting the World’.

²⁸ Brandmeyer and McBee, ‘Social Status and Athletic Competition’.

²⁹ Lomi et al., ‘Sir Ludwig Guttmann’.

³⁰ McCann, ‘Sports for the Disabled’.

³¹ Anderson, ‘Turned in Tax Payers’.

³² Guttmann, ‘On the Way to an International’.

³³ Ibid.

³⁴ The Cord, ‘Stoke Mandeville Calling’.

³⁵ Guttmann, ‘Looking Back on a Decade’.

³⁶ Scruton, ‘International Stoke Mandeville Games’.

³⁷ The Cord, ‘The 1960 International Stoke Mandeville Games’.

³⁸ DCMS, London 2012, 12.

³⁹ Cf. Brittain, The Paralympic Games Explained.

⁴⁰ Thierfeld and Gibbons, ‘From Access to Equity’, 21.

⁴¹ Tasiemski et al., ‘Sports, Recreation and Employment’.

⁴² Brittain, The Paralympic Games Explained.

⁴³ Hardin and Hardin, ‘The “Supercrip” in Sport Media’, cited in Berger, ‘Disability and the Dedicated’.

⁴⁴ Dummer, Media Coverage of Disability Sport, 56.

⁴⁵ Brittain, Elite Athletes with Disabilities.

⁴⁶ Brittain, British Media Perceptions of the Paralympics.

⁴⁷ British Standards Commission, Monitoring Report 7, cited in Haralambos and Holborn, Sociology, 956.

⁴⁸ Reiser and Mason, Disability Equality in the Classroom, cited in Barnes, Disabled People in Britain and Discrimination, 198.

⁴⁹ Brittain, ‘Paralympic Success as a Measure’.

⁵⁰ William, ‘Paralympics Wins “Historic” Sainsburys Sponsorship Deal’.

⁵¹ BBC, ‘Channel 4 Lands 2012 Paralympics’.

⁵² Brittain, ‘Disability Sport is Going Back to its Roots’.