At the 2004 Olympic Summer Games in Athens, a Canadian wheelchair athlete by the name of Chantal Petitclerc won the women’s 800-metre sprint before a packed stadium of track and field fans. The crowds cheered just as loudly for her medal ceremony as they did for the able-bodied events, despite the fact that it was a demonstration sport and medals were not awarded.
By including a wheelchair event usually reserved for the Paralympics in the Olympics, organizers made a bold statement in support of the sport while showing that disabled athletes are every bit as deserving of Olympic status as able-bodied athletes. So why, I wonder, are the Olympics and Paralympics still separate?
As a Games host we’re constantly reminded that the Paralympics are their own unique, standalone event, although no country can bid for an Olympics and choose not to host the Paralympics as well two weeks later. Given the choice, I wonder how many countries would willingly host a second massive international event just weeks after hosting the biggest event on the planet?
Some people want to keep the events separate, with separate organizing bodies, different sponsors, and other distinctions. They believe their sports and athletes would be lost in a wider Olympic program, and that the Paralympics should stand on their own, separate but equal.
Others believe that the separation hurts the Paralympics, and that athletes like Chantal Petitclerc should have the opportunity to contend for Olympic medals. As Petitclerc herself noted, “An Olympic medal is worth more to me than a Paralympic medal.”
Not because she thinks the Paralympics are a lesser event than the Olympics, but because she believes her sport is as legitimate and challenging as any able-bodied sport, and that she would be able to beat any able-bodied person in a wheelchair event.
Believe it or not, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympics Winter Games is the first organizing committee to combine leadership and resources for both events. It makes sense — the athletes use the same venues, with a few modifications, and generally follow the same rules. The only difference is that one set of events is sanctioned by the IOC, and the other by the IPC.
I’m sure the real reason the two events are still separate is more complicated than it appears, especially when you look at issues like television broadcast rights, Olympic and Paralympic sponsors, and the logistics of combining events.
But while I could probably be convinced that the Summer Olympics and Paralympics might be too large to combine — there were 301 Olympic gold medals and 519 Paralympic gold medals awarded in 2004 — I think both events could co-exist in the much smaller, much more compact Winter Games quite nicely.
While there would be a few challenges, like finding room for more athletes and officials in host cities, I’d say the positives outweigh the negatives by a long margin. We could even add a few days to the Olympic schedule if it makes things easier, and still come out ahead.
Logistically, it seems like a natural fit. It allows the same volunteers and officials to run Olympic and Paralympic Alpine and Nordic events, maybe even on the same day with time in between for medals and track maintenance. People who buy tickets to Olympic hockey games could stay for a double-header featuring sledge hockey teams.
Combining events will also give Paralympic athletes more exposure, as the Olympics attract more media and have a better television deal.
As long as the events continue to be separated by a few weeks, the Paralympics will never get the attention they deserve — if only because we’ll all be pretty much burned out by all things Olympics by the time the Paralympics come around.
Our Weasel Workers will have to be going for six weeks straight to host both Olympic and Paralympic races in Whistler. People in Whistler are also still waiting for a transportation and security plan to find out how our movement will be limited during the Olympic Games. What we don’t know is how these plans will apply to the Paralympics as well, but if they do I can imagine that people will be getting impatient by the time the Paralympic Games wrap up on March 21, 2010 — six weeks after the start of the Olympics on Feb. 12.
I was at the 2006 Paralympic Winter Games and I can honestly say that when you compare the scope of the festivities surrounding each event, the Paralympics really do come off looking like the Olympics’ poor cousin. There are far fewer athletes competing, and a smaller budget for events like the opening and closing ceremonies. CBC didn’t even broadcast the gold medal sledge hockey game live, but instead showed a tape of the event several days later.
Maybe running the Paralympics two years apart from the Olympics could create a comfortable distance and eliminate the burn-out factor, but that solution doesn’t do anything to ease the stigma that the Paralympics are somehow a lesser event or encourage more sponsorship or support for Paralympic sports and athletes.
As long as the two Games are awarded together, they should be staged together. And although it’s too late for 2010 (and maybe 2014 if it doesn’t fit with Russia’s plans), it’s time to finally celebrate the fact that Paralympians are Olympians too.
