Paralympics deserve more respect on the broadcast stage
Deborah Kendrick // March 12, 2006
Copyright 2006 The Columbus Dispatch
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Visit U.S. Paralympics
If you were enthralled last month by the daily highlights of the Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy, you don't need to wait for Beijing 2008 for another fix. Six hundred world-class athletes from 41 countries are competing through next Sunday in the same venue.
The Paralympics Games, first held in 1960 in South Korea, have been held since 1975 in the same cities as the Olympics and about two weeks later. Sometimes confused with the Special Olympics, a wonderful event in which people with mental retardation ages 8 to 80 participate and where everyone receives a medal, the Paralympics feature elite athletes who leave jobs, school, families and other responsibilities to train for months, as do their nondisabled peers. The competitors have such disabilities as spinal-cord injuries, cerebral palsy, visual impairments, intellectual disabilities or a category called les autres (others), and can compete in a variety of 26 events, such as wheelchair tennis and tandem cycling.
This year's Winter Games feature alpine skiing, ice-sledge hockey, Nordic skiing and wheelchair curling. The athletes are divided in to classifications, determined by disability and level of functionality. Somewhat analogous to weight classifications in wrestling or boxing, Paralympians are classified by such standards as how much or many limbs have movement and to what degree or how much vision, if any, an athlete has and to what degree in terms of central or peripheral visual acuity.
The Paralympics have not been a central focus for international broadcasting. This year, for example, TV networks in Canada, Great Britain and Australia will air major portions of the events and NBC's Today Show and ESPN probably will broadcast snippets, but no U.S. network opted to broadcast the Games all week. Still, you can watch them.
A first-time collaboration between the International Paralympic Committee and Narrowstep Television Inc., with such sponsors as Visa and Samsung, is bringing the first 24-hour broadcast of the Paralympics to viewers worldwide, via the Internet.
At www.ParalympicSport.tv, people could watch Friday's opening ceremonies, and continue enjoying the daily events including on-demand archived footage of particular competitions.
Can you name an Alpine ski racer who zooms down slopes at 60 mph, who has organized a New England-based ski team and who has participated in world-class games as skier and coach? This could almost describe Bode Miller, but I'm talking about Christopher Devlin-Young, whose lower body is paralyzed and who has won medals first as a stand-up disabled skier and later, after sports injuries and declining functionality, as a racer sitting down.
Why are the names Josh Sundquist, Laurie Stephens and Ralph Green not as well-known, say, as Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen? As Rodney Dangerfield might have asked, why do they get no respect?
Maybe I'm playing a bit of the Pollyanna, but I'm guessing the reason is more lack of awareness and exposure than any real disdain. I don't want to be wrong.
Check out www.ParalympicSport.tv. Watch it long enough, get a handle on the toughness of these athletes and the triumph of their spirit and accomplishment. Then tell you friends, and maybe when the 2008 Games roll around, Olympics-viewing junkies can look forward to an extra couple of weeks watching elite athletes - on national TV.
Deborah Kendrick is a Cincinnati writer and advocate for people with disabilities. dkkendrick@earthlink.net
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