Paralympic Games
As one of the world's largest multi-sport events, investment in the Paralympic Games and Paralympic athletes can positively impact on society in many ways.
As one of the world's largest multi-sport events, investment in the Paralympic Games and Paralympic athletes can positively impact on society in many ways, including:
- social inclusion and diversity
- education
- employment
- health and wellbeing
- inspiration and role models
- international development (aid and trade)
- community development
- medical/equipment research and development.
In 2000, Sydney hosted the Summer Paralympic Games, and this significantly raised the profile of the Paralympic movement in Australia and the world.
It was the first Paralympic Games with significant live international TV coverage, and the first to be webcast. 50, 51 While the 1992 Barcelona Paralympic Games was the first to provide a live TV broadcast, it was only available in Europe and reached around 1.5 million viewers. Eight years later, the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games broadcast had an estimated 300 million viewers across 100 countries. 52
A dedicated national school education program for the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games also increased awareness of Paralympic sports and people with disability, with over 340,000 school children attending the Games in person. 49
There are several legacy studies that attempt to document the outcomes of hosting the Paralympic Games directly for persons with disability as well as on the broader community, with some showing positive societal and participatory outcomes. 43, 47, 48
However, others question the continuing 'ableist' discourse and whether or not it actually leads to positive perceptions and participation outcomes for people with disability, especially if the underlying individual and societal barriers and challenges they face are not addressed through long term planning and investment outside of the event period. 22, 44, 45, 46,
Resources and reading
- Record number of broadcasters set to cover Paris 2024 Paralympics, opens in a new tab, International Paralympic Committee, (28 February 2024). Media Rights Holders in more than 160 countries and territories have committed to broadcasting the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. In addition to greater interest from broadcasters, the overall revenue raised from media rights sales has increased by more than 20 per cent compared to Tokyo 2020, a Games which were shown in 154 countries and territories to a cumulative 4.1 billion viewers. Paris 2024 will make history as the first Paralympic Games to offer some live coverage from each of the 22 sports. At Tokyo 2020, 19 sports were broadcast, and at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games 15 sports were shown live.
- London 2012 Paralympics was not a gamechanger for disabled people’s sports participation – here’s why, opens in a new tab, Christopher Brown, University of Hertfordshire, The Conversation , (26 August 2022). This summer marks ten years since London hosted the 2012 Paralympics. It was hoped the Paralympics would have a lasting legacy on improving access to and participation in sports for disabled people. But the data shows the Games made no meaningful difference in this regard. The London 2012 Paralympics did help to raise the profile of parasport and disability in society to some extent. But any increases in sports participation that happened as a result were temporary. To truly improve participation in sport, the challenges and barriers that prevent disabled people from participating in both sport and society need to be addressed. We cannot simply rely on a two-week elite sporting event to do this.
- Beijing 2022 to bring greater accessibility for persons with disabilities, opens in a new tab, Beijing 2022/paralympic.org, (25 November 2021). With 100 days to go, the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games are already delivering tangible legacies for persons with disabilities by improving accessibility in Beijing and Zhangjiakou, two of the zones that will be hosting sport next March. The CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and the People's Government of Beijing Municipality have made thousands of practical and legal changes to improve long-term accessibility for persons with disabilities in urban Beijing.
- Why the 2000 Sydney Paralympics were such a success — and forever changed the games, opens in a new tab, Tony Naar, Murray Phillips, The Conversation, (19 October 2020). In sport, timing can be everything. The 2000 Sydney Paralympic Games...came at a time when the Paralympic movement was growing and becoming more visible. And the Sydney Games left a legacy that has forever changed the way the games are run and how Paralympic athletes train and prepare.
- Into the spotlight: media coverage of the Paralympic Games has come a long way, opens in a new tab, Tony Naar, The Conversation, (15 September 2016). From 1960 until 1972, newspapers carried occasional results and stories about the performance of Australian athletes at the Paralympic Games, although there was more emphasis on stories before departure and covering their return. In 1988, the first ABC TV crew attended the Seoul Paralympic Games. While the crew provided some brief footage for news reports during the Games, the main outcome was another post-Games documentary. It wasn’t until 1992 that the ABC sent a TV crew with the express purpose of sending pictures back to Australia during the Games.
- The Paralympic Games and the Promotion of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, opens in a new tab, Sir Philip Craven, UN Chronicle, Volume LIII, No. 2, (August 2016). Looks at the impact of hosting the Paralympic Games on the development of disability rights and recognition in China, England, Russia and Rio.
- IPC highlights from the first 25 years, opens in a new tab, International Paralympic Committee, (2014). A lot has happened since the International Paralympic Committee was formed on 22 September 1989. Check-out the timeline below to see some of the highlights of the last 25 memorable years.
- Superhip to supercrip: the ‘trickle-down’ effect of the Paralympics, opens in a new tab, Gregor Wolbring, Brian Litke, The Conversation (August 2012). Author argues that despite the increasing success of the Paralympic Games there is no evidence of an automatic 'trickle-down' effect and that more has to be done to address the barriers to participation and ensure this popularity leads to real changes for the average person with a disability.
- The Paralympic Games: Legacies and Empowerment, opens in a new tab, Dr Chris Brown, Disability Sport Info, (9 December 2021). In this episode, I explore the potential impact the Paralympic Games may have on disabled people. The potential for sport participation legacies from the Paralympic Games is reviewed, followed by a critical appraisal of the empowerment/disempowerment potential of the Paralympic Games for disabled people.
- Paralympic data from the ONS Opinions and Lifestyle Survey, opens in a new tab. UK Department for Work and Pensions and Office for Disability Issues (July 2014). The data in this publication is taken from the ONS Opinions and Lifestyle Survey, which includes questions about attitudes towards disabled people before and after the 2012 Paralympics.
- Inspired by 2012: The legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, opens in a new tab, A joint UK Government and Mayor of London report, London, Cabinet Office (2013). Chapter Six of the report focuses on legacies from 2012 London Paralympics. These included: 81% of people surveyed thought that the Games had a positive effect on how disabled people are viewed by the British public, increase in disabled people’s participation in sport, and improved accessibility in transport. For instance, London's 22,000 black cabs can now accommodate wheelchairs and all 8,500 London buses are now wheelchair accessible and over 70% of bus stops are fully accessible.
- YouGov Nationwide Paralympic Legacy Survey, opens in a new tab, YouGov, (12 August 2013). YouGov poll surveyed 2,606 adults across the UK after the London Paralympics. It found that 67 per cent of people believed that the profile and awareness of disability has been raised generally and 64 per cent said that disabled people are better recognised as being able to lead normal lives and achieve at work.
- London 2012 : a legacy for disabled people - setting new standards, changing perceptions, opens in a new tab, UK Office for Disability Issues, (2010). The London Olympic and Paralympic Games plan to change three major areas: influence the attitudes and perceptions of people regarding disabled people, increase the participation of disabled people in sport and physical activity and promote and drive improvements in business, transport and employment opportunities for disabled people.
- Paralympic Broadcasting and Social Change: An Integrated Mixed Method Approach to Understanding the Paralympic Audience in the UK, opens in a new tab, Emma Pullen, Daniel Jackson, Michael Silk, Television and New Media, Volume 23(4), pp.368-388, (2022). Despite the successful transition of the Paralympics from relative obscurity to global mega-event, we still know little about how it is consumed by audiences. Only since 1992 has the Paralympics been televised and for much of its subsequent history, it has existed on the fringes of primetime TV schedules, typically only through highlights programs. Despite its recent commodification and increasing commercial success (particularly since 2012), the global picture of Paralympic broadcasting is still very uneven, with some countries fully invested in making it a mega sporting event and others barely recognizing its existence.
- “The Legacy Element . . . It Just Felt More Woolly”: Exploring the Reasons for the Decline in People With Disabilities’ Sport Participation in England 5 Years After the London 2012 Paralympic Games, opens in a new tab, Christopher Brown, Athanasios (Sakis) Pappous, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Volume 42(5), pp.343-368, (October 2018). This article explores why sports participation of people with disabilities in England has declined since the London 2012 Paralympic Games (LPG). Thirty semistructured interviews were conducted with staff employed in a variety of sports and disability-specific organizations. Our preliminary findings suggest that the decline is a result of a complex interplay between multiple factors. A competency gap and a lack of relevance between Paralympians and the rest of the community of people with disabilities might have limited the impact of the legacy. In addition, an absence of coordinated leveraging of the LPG, and a decline in the media coverage of disability sport in the aftermath of the LPG, might also have dulled the legacy. Finally, our data show that austerity and negative media coverage of people with disabilities deterred some people from participating in sport.
- Survey report on awareness and participation behavior in disabled sports and disability understanding after Tokyo’s bid for the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, opens in a new tab, Kotomi Shiota, Journal of Physical Therapy Science, Volume 30(1), pp.5-10, (January 2018). This study analyzes awareness and participation behavior in disabled sports and disability understanding after Tokyo’s bid for the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics. The results of this survey indicate that there was little or no intended or actual behaviour change within the population surveyed towards watching, participating, or volunteering in disabled sports. The author suggests that in order to change behaviour more needs to be done to promote and deepen understanding of, and participation in, disabled sport.
- The fiddle of using the Paralympic Games as a vehicle for expanding [dis]ability sport participation, opens in a new tab, P. David Howe, Carla Filomena Silva, Sport in Society, Volume 21(1), pp.125-136, (2018). This paper highlights the need to explore the significance given to the Paralympic Games as a vehicle for the encouragement of participation of people with a disability within sport. The media spectacle around the games that the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has developed has become, for policy-makers and the public alike, a sufficient outlet for disability sport provision. The honourable goals of the IPC articulated through the ethos of Paralympism have been assumed to be valid for all people with a disability, yet in terms of widening participation, their utility is limited. This paper first illuminates the relationship between the International Olympic Committee and the IPC before we turn our attention to the ethos of Paralympism. Highlighting the necessity for ‘sport for all’, we use a human rights lens, aided by a capabilities approach to facilitate better ways to educate the public about the need for equality of access to sporting participation opportunities.
- Facilitating sport participation legacies from Olympic and Paralympic Games: the case of Whistler Adaptive Sports and Vancouver 2010, opens in a new tab, Dickson, T., Darcy, S., NASSM Conference Abstract, (2017). Using a case study approach, this study explored the planning for and delivery of a sport participation legacy through the Whistler Adaptive Sports Program in the lead up to and following the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. It demonstrates that it is possible to achieve a a sport participation legacy from the Olympic and Paralympic Games, but it requires vision, planning and action.
- Legacy of sporting mega events for people with disabilities: The Paralympic Games, opens in a new tab, ByIan Brittain, Chapter 6 in Legacies and Mega Events, opens in a new tab, Routledge, (2017). There is very little published work that has investigated event legacies in terms of the Paralympic Games (Misener et al., 2013). This is despite the fact that, in many ways, the Paralympic Games, and their forerunners the Stoke Mandeville Games, were founded with the aim of providing a positive legacy for people with disabilities Through the lens of ableism this chapter highlights some of the legacy claims made for previous Paralympic Games before looking in more detail at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 summer Paralympic Games. Overall the chapter highlights that the Paralympic Games does have agency in the sense that it provides a platform from which to engage in debate about disability issues, but that political, economic, and cultural specificities within a host country can all work either for or against the legacy process in many complicated and often unexpected ways.
- Paralympic Legacy: Exploring the Impact of the Games on the Perceptions of Young People With Disabilities, opens in a new tab. Janine Kim Coates, Philip Vickerman, Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, Volume 33(4), pp. 338-357, (October 2016). The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games aimed to deliver a legacy to citizens of the United Kingdom, which included inspiring a generation of young people to participate in sport. This study aimed to understand the legacy of the Paralympic Games for children with disabilities. Eight adolescents (11-16 yr) with physical disabilities were interviewed about their perceptions of the Paralympic Games. Thematic analysis found 3 key themes that further our understanding of the Paralympic legacy. These were Paralympians as role models, changing perceptions of disability, and the motivating nature of the Paralympics.
- Leveraging the London 2012 Paralympic Games: What Legacy for Disabled People?, opens in a new tab Ian Brittain, Aaron Beacom, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Volume 40(6), pp.499-521, (2016). The International Paralympic Committee, U.K. Government, and the Organizing Committee for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games have all claimed partial success in delivery a positive legacy during the course of the 4-year period (Olympiad) separating the London and Rio Paralympic Games. However, this is at odds with the findings of Disabled People’s Organizations (DPOs) and the experiences of disabled individuals. This article considers the claims of both sides.
- Leveraging parasport events for sustainable community participation: The Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, opens in a new tab, Laura Misener, David McGillivray, Gayle McPherson, et al., Annals of Leisure Research, Volume 18(4), pp.450-469, (September 2015). Drawing on a case study of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, this article examines the extent to which the hosting of an integrated parasport event where able-bodied athletes and athletes with a disability compete alongside one another is being leveraged to create opportunities for community participation, and influence community attitudes towards disability. The assumption about hosting parasport events is that the mere visibility of events will impact attitudes and perceptions towards persons with disabilities in a positive manner; however, little evidence beyond anecdotes supports this assumption. Recent research on leveraging events also suggests the need to strategically utilize the opportunity of the event and related resources if seeking to attain sustainable positive impacts for the host community. The results suggest that whilst at the strategic level there was evidence of an integrated policy approach to leveraging the event for broader accessibility outcomes, this was not always accompanied by clear programmes or projects that are likely to lead to demonstrable impacts beyond the normal temporality of large-scale sporting events. We conclude by suggesting that the absence of clear, resourced and measurable aspirations for the parasport element of the Games may lead to unfulfilled leveraging possibilities as levels of interest and resources diminish.
- Public Attitudes Toward People With Intellectual Disabilities After Viewing Olympic or Paralympic Performance, opens in a new tab. Ferrara, K; Burns, J; Mills, K, Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, Volume 32(1), pp.19-33, (2015). A 2012 Paralympic Games goal was to influence the public’s attitudes toward people with disabilities. Study's findings provide evidence that both Paralympic (ID) and Olympic media coverage may have at least a short-term effect on attitudes toward people with disabilities, particularly people with an intellectual disability.
- 'A mockery of equality': An exploratory investigation into disabled activists' views of the Paralympic Games, opens in a new tab. Stuart Braye, Kevin Dixon, Tom Gibbons, Disability and Society, Volume 28(7), pp.984-996, (October 2013). This article offers an exploratory analysis of the opinions of disabled activists towards the Paralympic Games through the use of a qualitative online survey of disabled individuals (n = 32) who are not Paralympic athletes but are affiliated to the disability rights group, the United Kingdom Disabled People’s Council. The results illustrate a nuanced yet negative view of the Games to contrast with an existing, yet overly positive, academic narrative.
- The Paralympic Movement: using sports to promote health, disability rights, and social integration for athletes with disabilities, opens in a new tab. Blauwet C, Willick SE, PM and R: The Journal Of Injury, Function, And Rehabilitation, Volume 4(11), pp.851-856, (2012). Paralympic Games has greatly assisted in the promotion of health, disability rights, and social integration through sports. It has expanded opportunities available to athletes with disabilities.
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