Paralympic Games: from rehabilitation for war wounded to a celebration of diversity
For the first time, the Olympic and Paralympic Games have a single logo. However, although according to the latest information on the subject, each event is expected to have its own opening and closing ceremonies, Paralympics and Olympics seem to be more closely linked than ever before.
Sylvain Ferez, University of Montpellier and Sébastien Ruffie, University of the Antilles
However, this was far from obvious. The history of the Paralympic Games is complex, raising the question of how to define disability. Starting as sporting events organized solely for people with spinal cord injuries in wheelchairs (created in 1948), from the 1970s onwards they gradually began to include people with other types of disabilities.
The format chosen for this summer's Parisian events, featuring 22 parasports (the sports included in the Paralympic Games program), is the result of a long process that began on July 29, 1948, when theXIV Olympiad kicked off in London. On that date, neurosurgeon Ludwig Guttmann organized an archery competition at the nearby Stoke Mandeville Hospital between 16 wheelchair-bound veterans of World War II with spinal injuries.
Of German origin, Guttmann invented rehabilitation practices based on sports games. Throughout the 1950s, his Stoke Games attracted more and more participants and began to take on an international dimension. Reserved for wheelchair users, they were held every summer within the hospital grounds. In 1952, they welcomed a Dutch delegation, with five competitions on the program: archery, netball, javelin, table tennis, and billiards; swimming was included as a demonstration sport. In 1953, teams from France, Australia, Canada, Finland, Israel, and South Africa joined the event.
These Stoke Games continued to be part of a rehabilitation program, and Guttmann organized an annual medical conference on advances in the treatment of spinal cord injuries.
Persistent medical logic
It was their relocation to Rome in 1960, in the wake of the Olympic Games, that would partially change the situation. Although the sporting dimension became more prominent, they remained committed to the rehabilitation of people with spinal cord injuries. This relocation was made possible thanks to the links between Ludwig Guttmann and Antonio Maglio, an Italian colleague who founded a rehabilitation center for paraplegics near the Italian capital. Four hundred athletes, all in wheelchairs, from 23 countries competed in eight disciplines. Benefiting from Olympic facilities, they left the hospital environment but remained under medical supervision. This was reflected in the ministers who came to support the athletes. These "Paralympic Games" opened in the presence of the Italian Minister of Health but without the Minister of Sports. The same would be true four years later in Tokyo. Nevertheless, a dynamic was set in motion that would lead to the creation of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) in 1989.
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The Paralympic Games are now recognized by the IOC as an event involving athletes with various types of disabilities (actually "differently abled"). Para no longer means "for the paralyzed," but "parallel" to the Olympic Games.
But before we get there, many disputes will have to be overcome.
Competitive dynamics
In fact, in the 1960s, voices were raised in favor of opening up the sport to amputees and blind people, which was disapproved of by the Stoke Federation, which remained focused on wheelchair sports for people with spinal cord injuries. In 1964 in Tokyo, a "multi-disability" sporting event was held alongside the Paralympic Games for non-paralyzed athletes. In 1968, the Paralympic Games were held in Tel Aviv and were still reserved for wheelchair users only. However, little by little, the initial goal of rehabilitation gave way to the desire to move closer to the Olympic competitive model and the image of the champion.
Although Guttmann was opposed to this competitive approach for all types of disability, the goal of athletes and certain national federations—including France—is inexorably moving toward distancing themselves from medical supervision in order to align more closely with the sporting world and its national and international bodies.
Progressive reconciliations
The 1970s confirmed this shift, with competitions gradually welcoming new types of disabilities by categorizing athletes according to their abilities.
The aim is to enable them to participate, while ensuring equal opportunities and the competitive nature of sport. Thus, the integration of new athletes with specific characteristics requires consideration of the implementation of functional classifications based on their abilities and the impact these have on their performance.
In 1972, during the Paralympic Games in Heidelberg (the Olympic Games were held in Munich), visually impaired athletes were allowed to participate in exhibition events in goalball and the 100-meter sprint. At the same time, amputees entered the stadium to express their dissatisfaction, as recalled by the late athletics coach Christian Paillard of the French federation: "What did I see coming? Amputees with large banners! They staged a sit-in on the track, saying, 'We want to participate in the Games too!'"
It took another four years and the 1976 Toronto Games before amputees and visually impaired athletes were officially allowed to compete. Keen to raise their profile, each disability category founded its own international federation and in 1982, a committee (ICC) was created to coordinate them and liaise with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
At the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, wheelchair events were included in the program outside of competition, with the aim of promoting sports for people with disabilities. This first appearance of Paralympic events at the Olympic Games angered amputees, who felt excluded. It threatened to split the movement.
Despite the crisis, the Paralympic Games went ahead in 1984, but were split into two: athletes in wheelchairs competed in New York, and all others in Stoke. In 1986, two international federations joined the movement: one for deaf athletes and one for athletes with intellectual disabilities.
More than two decades after Tokyo (1964), the Seoul Games (1988) provided an opportunity to bring the Olympic and Paralympic Games together again on the same site. This had not been seen since 1964.
In 1989, the creation of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) completed the alignment with the Olympic Games and paved the way for a single event organized in partnership with the IOC: the Olympic and Paralympic Games (OPG) would now be held at the same venue. This requirement would ultimately only be applied starting in 1996 in Atlanta, as the 1992 Paralympic Games were held in both Barcelona (for athletes with physical disabilities) and Madrid (for athletes with intellectual disabilities), while the Olympic Games were held in Barcelona.
A desire to practice like everyone else
However, the integration movement is not yet complete and remains a source of tension. In 1995, the federation of deaf athletes decided to withdraw, preferring to compete among deaf people who affirm their unique culture, or, for the most talented athletes, in the Olympic Games. In the end, deaf people have never participated in the Paralympic Games.
At the same time, although athletes with intellectual disabilities competed in the Paralympic Games for the first time in 1992, their participation was not without controversy. During the basketball tournament in Sydney (2000), it emerged that several players on the Spanish team that won the tournament did not in fact have cognitive impairments. The gold medal was returned and, unsure of how to ensure a reliable selection process for this type of athlete, the IPC suspended their participation. It was not until London (2012) that they were reinstated.
The desire to practice "like everyone else" produces a unifying force that gradually leads to a break with the medical world. Paradoxically, the aspiration to normality forces us to invent adapted tests in which everyone can showcase their abilities.
Sylvain Ferez, Senior Lecturer (HDR), Sociology, University of Montpellier and Sébastien Ruffie, University Professor in Social Sciences, University of the Antilles
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