Building bridges: a Qualitative exploration of the athlete – guide partnership in high-performance parasport

ABSTRACT

Individuals who are visually impaired compete in Paralympic sports with the help of their sighted guides. The guide participates alongside the athlete, and the pair seek to achieve optimal performance together. The partnership transforms many sports -typically understood to be individual- into team sports, yet little is known about this unique sport relationship. The purpose of this study was to explore how the athlete – guide partnership challenges and reproduces normative assumptions of bodies, abilities, and high-performance sport. The study was informed by a critical interpretivist paradigm and included interviews with both athletes and guides from six high-performance athlete – guide pairs (12 interviews). The data were analysed through a reflexive thematic analysis and two themes were constructed. Changing ‘Visibility’: Reshaping Perspectives Through the Athlete – Guide Partnership illustrates how being part of the athlete – guide partnership led participants to different understandings about high-performance sport and disability. Tandeming Sport Systems Built for One demonstrates the challenges participants encountered navigating in tandem sport systems intended to support solo athletes. The findings suggest that the athlete – guide partnership creates inclusivity in Para sport by allowing athletes to fully participate. However, the partnership is also exposed to detrimental aspects of high-performance sport environments that prioritise performance rather than athlete well-being. The findings contribute to a growing body of critical disability sport scholarship that calls out ableism in sport. It also can inform the practices of the sport sector with the aim of better understanding and supporting the needs of visually impaired athletes.

KEYWORDS:

• Disability
• sport
• Paralympics
• blind
• visually impaired

Acknowledgements

To the many athletes and guides we have had the privilege of working with. May you resonate with the experiences of these participants and know that your work is appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. When considering the experiences of individuals who have historically been marginalised, language matters. While there are ongoing debates amongst disability scholars about preferred language (i.e. person first vs. identity first) we have opted to use identity first (i.e. disabled athletes) as this aligns with disability justice advocates and scholars who centre action in their social justice efforts.

2. In some sports and classes, visually impaired athlete are ‘permitted’ but not ‘required’ to have a guide as is in the case for athletes classified as B3 in Nordic skiing. In other sports, the use of a guide is mandatory. This is the case for all visually impaired athletes competing in cycling – the events for visually impaired athletes all involve the use of a tandem bike and sighted pilot.

3. The other examples are boccia where athletes in the BC1, BC3 and BC4 classes can have a non-disabled ‘assistant’ who takes instructions from the athlete to make adjustments to the height or position of the ramp that athletes use to deliver the ball and rowing where a non-disabled coxswain steers and commands the boat in the mixed coxed four event that includes male and female athletes with diverse impairments.

4. Throughout the text we refer to athletes with visual impairments as ‘athletes’ and their sighted partners as ‘guides’ – such terminology is not to imply that sighted guides are not also athletes but rather a language choice to distinguish between the roles in these partnerships. This terminology is also consistent with how the pairs competing in these events are commonly referred to in Para sport selection documents and when reporting on event results.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Staci Mannella

Staci Mannella is a doctoral student in counseling psychology at Ball State University. Her research uses qualitative methodologies to explore the intersections of high performance disability sport cultures, expereinces of impairments, and athlete mental health.

Andrea Bundon

Andrea Bundon is an Associate Professor in the School of Kinesiology at the University of British Columbia. Her research spans the sociology of sport and critical disability studies. Informed by qualitative and participatory methodologies, she explores the intersections of sport, physical activity, health, disability and social inclusion/exclusion.