Consider contributions Paralympians make to Olympic mission

For most Americans, the ongoing Paralympics is an afterthought – especially considering the scant media attention it receives here.  (To follow coverage, refer to this earlier blog post by my colleague Dunja Antunovic.)

Sports performed by those in wheelchairs or perhaps missing a limb are not broadcast on television or widely covered by the print media.

 
The Jerusalem Post had a great editorial extolling the virtues of the Paralympics. The article voiced a hope that more resources would be steered toward young people who are not able to play sports conventionally.

As mentioned in an earlier post, money for youth sports is becoming more and more difficult to find. Therefore I do not posit a guess on whether there will actually be any movement toward increasing access of sports to more young people.

What I will say is that the Paralympics fulfill the Olympic mission. It is easy to forget the mission when discussing doping scandals, huge sums of money paid for broadcast rights and wealthy professional athletes treating the Games as secondary to the professional careers. Consider the second principle of Olympism: The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.

The last few words “preservation of human dignity” are especially powerful. People such as Jesse Owens, John Carlos and Tommy Smith readily come to mind when thinking about those words.

However, we should not discount the contributions of all Paralympians – past and present – in that endeavor as well. The feats that will be performed in the coming days will show that Paralympians are truly authentic athletes.

-- Steve Bien-Aimé

A new blog where athletes come first

The mainstream media are still falling behind in covering disability sports and the network of resources for athletes with disability is far from perfect, but a new blog carries a promise of making things better.

Athletes First: Sporting Abilities and Opinions is administered by Andrea Bundon, a graduate student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada who, in a collaboration with a group of athletes, started a blog that serves as a connecting point for those interested in disability sports.

The idea was conceived when Bundon became a guide to a cross country skier Courtney Knight, who was at the time preparing for the 2010 Paralympic Games. During the travels for training and competition to remote locations, Bundon and Knight kept in touch with their friends and family through blogging.

“I loved that idea of athletes as sort of 'foreign correspondents' who would travel the world and do all these interesting things and then send reports back home,” Bundon said. At the same time, Bundon was aware that athletes with disability might not have the same opportunities to connect with each other as able-bodied athletes do.

“At some point the two ideas came together,” Bundon recalled. “Courtney and I started to think maybe we could use a blog to connect athlete to athlete in a way that enables athletes to be a resource to each other.”

Putting the blog together, just as most collaborative work, has been a challenging process mostly due to conflicting timelines with the athletes who are busy with competition. For Bundon, perhaps the greatest challenge, however, has been to negotiate her role as a researcher in this project.

“One question I've struggled with right from the start is 'what right do I have to do this research?',” Bundon wondered. “I'm an able-bodied athlete who has had this incredible opportunity see the Paralympic from the inside out. Because I guided at the 2010 Games, the Canadian Paralympic Committee classifies me as a 'Paralympian' but that's not an identity I claim and I'm well aware that there are many who would challenge that classification. But at the same time I saw an opportunity to combine my academic interests with my passion for sport and my belief that sport should be accessible to everyone.”

She is combining these effectively through the blog that officially launched two weeks ago and includes contributions from Paralympic athletes and guides. The blog welcomes comments from readers and encourages participation in the dialogue.

As the language around disability sports can be highly problematic and gets “complicated,” as the blog team concluded, the name of the blog was carefully thought out. Bundon gives full credit to Knight for coming up with it.

“AthletesFirst is a play on the 'person first language' promoted by many disability rights activists - for example 'person with a disability' rather than 'disabled person,' - and it also references the notion of an athlete-centred sport system,” Bundon explained. “But most importantly, it represents the desire of all athletes to be recognized for their athletic achievements.”

The members of the blog team, though dispersed geographically, are committed to making the blog a space where athletes can share their experiences and address issues they encounter in sports. Bundon finds that to be a significant contribution of the blog.

“Participating in discussions about the practices of the sport system is an important step for athletes who want to be more involved in the sport system and advocate for policies that are athlete-centred,” Bundon said. “This is particularly important for athletes with a disability given that they are operating within a system that was not necessarily designed with them in mind.”

As the London 2012 Paralympic Games are approaching, readers can expect to learn more about the preparations and the legacy from the blog and might also encounter some “star appearances” beyond the regular contributors.

“We have a few athletes who've committed to making 'guest' blogs on topics they are particularly passionate about,” Bundon announced. “There a few other things in the works - a photo contest, a twitter chat and ideas are emerging all the time. You'll have to keep reading...”

Join the discussion at athletesfirst.ca.

Thank you to Andrea Bundon for taking the time to share the story of the blog.

-- Dunja Antunovic

Study finds troubling coverage of Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius

A new study by researchers associated with Penn State's John Curley Center for Sports Journalism examines print coverage of Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius' quest to compete in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The study, recently published in the International Journal of Sport Communication, provides a textual analysis of New York Times and Time magazine coverage of the sprinter’s case. In January 2007, the IAAF (track’s governing body) barred Pistorius from competition, arguing that his “Cheetah” prosthetics provided a “clear mechanical advantage.” Four months later, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned the IAAF decision, citing a lack of conclusive evidence as well as new findings that refuted the governing body’s ruling; however, Pistorius ultimately failed to qualify for the Beijing games.

Drawing on Foucault's ideas about the body, this study finds that media discourses surrounding Pistorius reinforced “an unjust but seemingly natural body hierarchy” (p. 303), perpetuating a view of the able body as the cultural sporting ideal. Deviant bodies, like Pistorius’ and those of other athletes with disabilities, are constrained through discursive mechanisms and institutional structures of biopower that function through the knowledge and regulation of sporting bodies.

While some media coverage offered progressive perspectives on disability and sport, this study finds that media discourses concerning Pistorius generally revolved around issues of fairness in competition. The New York Times, for instance, suggested that Pistorius’ performance begs the question of whether he’s “too abled.” As the authors of this study argue, though, “[T]he too abled label reinforces body hierarchies rather than challenging them. It is not that Pistorius was too fast or too talented. It is that he, like other athletes with disabilities, is too different” (p. 303).

According to the study, the discourses of fairness in competition (a powerful normative value of sport) positioned Pistorius as deviant—a threat to the values, integrity, even very nature of sport. Other themes identified by the researchers reflect this apparent threat: a privileging of a medical view of disability (rather than the more progressive social view); descriptions of prosthetics that reflect cultural assumptions about “normal” bodies; and particularly troubling use of dangerous “cyborg” imagery.

This analysis provides a lens on the role of discursive mechanisms in the classification and categorization of bodies that don’t conform to a seemingly natural, but ultimately unjust body hierarchy. Media discourses concerning Oscar Pistorius, as “contested sites for meanings inscribed on the body,” reflect this tension (p. 288).

--T.C. Corrigan