The Power of Perspective.
Morgan Waters & Rhiannon Thomas
The Paralympic Games are an international multi-sport event, similar to the Olympics but instead involving athletes with a wide range of disabilities. The Paralympics exist for the same reason as the Olympics – to showcase athletes who are the best of the best at their sport, but it is also more than that. From the Paralympics, we can see a celebration of diversity, resilience, and the Paralympic spirit that comes along with the games.
In order to look at the Paralympics, though, we must also look at perspective and why it is important to the entirety of the story of the Paralympics.
By looking at three different perspectives of the Paralympics, we can get closer to telling the whole story of the games and their importance to the disabled community.
Student Perspective
Growing up as someone who loved to watch sports, the Paralympics were not really something that came to my mind. Every four years, there would be three weeks of nearly non-stop Olympic Game coverage, but two weeks later when the Paralympics rolled around, it seemed as though there was little to no coverage on TV.
I was surrounded by stories of several famous athletes, from Jordan to Phelps, yet if I was asked to name a Paralympian before this year, I wouldn’t have been able to. It was only this year when presented with the opportunity to study abroad during the Paralympics that I began to truly appreciate the significance of the Paralympic games. I started brushing up on my para athlete knowledge and became aware of just how important and talented they are.
The Paralympics highlight the importance of different perspectives – not just in terms of having different abilities, but also with culture, gender, race and life experiences. Coming to this realization has helped my understanding of what it means to be a para athlete and the amazing things that sports can do to bring people together.
As a student, I’ve learned that sport is often viewed through a narrow lens, focusing primarily on able-bodied athletes and traditional sports. The Paralympics challenge this view by expanding our understanding of who can be an athlete and the importance of sports to everyone.
In the three images above, the same exact image is revealed through three different perspectives, showing how much changing a perspective can change a vision or mentality.
Paralympian Perspective
When searching for the whole picture of the Paralympic Games, it’s key to get the perspective of a Paralympic athlete.
Para table tennis athlete Jose Manuel Ruiz Reyes kicked off his Paris 2024 Paralympics with a bang, with the games being his 8th Paralympic games. With this, he set Spanish history by competing in the most Paralympic games for his country. In his eight Paralympics, Ruiz Reyes has won five medals – three bronze and two silvers.
Obviously with this much Paralympic experience, Ruiz Reyes was able to share his feelings about the Paralympics in depth. His first games were in Atlanta in 1996, when he was just 17 years old.
“I felt like a child in Disneyland,” he said, “Everything was special and great. Atlanta was the worst Paralympics organization wise, but the moment was still unbelievable.” Comparatively, he said the best games were in Beijing in 2008, with the organization and the food.
“The whole competition was special, especially for my sport where China is the biggest competitor.”
One of the most important things that Ruiz Reyes said during our time together, though, was that disabilities are just in your mind, emphasizing this by pointing to his head and emphasizing that your life is determined by your perspective on things. When you act with a positive attitude and outlook on life, that same attitude will return to you in your life.
Ruiz Reyes has a unique perspective on the Paralympics, a perspective that we would not have gotten to share without the opportunity to interview Ruiz Reyes.
“As a disabled person… I admire the guts and hard work put in by all the athletes.” In her post, she goes on to mention that the Paralympics are helpful in demonstrating the fact that disabilities aren’t just people who are in wheelchairs.”
— The CEO of Evenbreak, Jane Hatton
Disabled Perspective
To gain the full perspective of the Paralympics, it is important to also look at the perspective from the lens of people with disabilities who aren’t para athletes. How does the Paralympics make them feel? Are the Games empowering?
Evenbreak is an online job posting website in the United Kingdom made by people with disabilities, for people with disabilities. The CEO of Evenbreak, Jane Hatton, shared her thoughts on the Paralympics in a blog post.
“I have very mixed feelings about the Paralympics,” Hatton said. “As a disabled person… I admire the guts and hard work put in by all the athletes.” In her post, she goes on to mention that the Paralympics are helpful in demonstrating the fact that disabilities aren’t just people who are in wheelchairs.
The Paralympics help us focus on what para athletes can do rather than what they can’t do, something that people with disabilities are often faced with in the outside world. It also forces us as a society to focus on issues of accessibility, something that proved especially difficult in the Paris 2024 Games due to the old infrastructure of the city.
Bercy Arena
Although Hatton had many positives to say about the Paralympics, she also had negatives to share. “A disabled person can’t be an ordinary person getting on with their lives as best as they can, they must either be a benefit scrounger, or a superhuman hero,” Hatton said. She uses the words saints and sinners, where the saints are the superhuman para athletes and the sinners are the “benefit scroungers.” She believes that most disabled people do not fit into either of these categories, but are forced to because of the large pedestal that the Paralympics place para athletes on.
She also believes that the Paralympics and the Olympics should go on at the same time, to make sure that the two get equal coverage and to take away from the “separateness” that exists when the Olympics and Paralympics happen at the same time.
To get closer to telling the whole story of the Paralympic Games, it is important to make sure that we reach out to different people who might be affected by the Paralympics, including people with disabilities.
La Defense Arena
Perspectives are vital to understanding the significance of the Paralympic Games. Each perspective—from a sports journalism student discovering the inspiring world of para athletes, to a Paralympian like Jose Manuel Ruiz Reyes sharing his personal journey throughout eight Paralympics, to the voices of people with disabilities reflecting on the societal impact—offers a unique lens through which we can better appreciate the importance of the Paralympics. By embracing these diverse viewpoints, we are able to put together the pieces of the Paralympic puzzle. Perspectives help to illuminate the full story of the Paralympics, highlighting both its triumphs and the areas that still need attention, helping our understanding of what the Paralympic Games represent: a powerful intersection of sports, identity, and human resilience.
