The 2024 Paris Paralympics opened on August 28, 2024. The event features a record-breaking 4,400 athletes with a range of physical, sensory, and intellectual disabilities, hailing from 168 delegations. The opening ceremony, titled “From Discord to Concord: A Reflection on the Place of People with Disabilities in Society,” was, according to the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), an attempt to convey the forms in which “society claims to be inclusive but remains full of prejudice towards people with disabilities.”
The 11 days of competition started the following day, and since then, athletes have been breaking records and performing incredible feats. Some highlights include the Refugee Paralympic Team winning their second ever medal, British shooter Jodie Grinham competing while 28 weeks pregnant, Fleur Jong from the Netherlands breaking her own Paralympic record three times, and a Team USA boat with three rowers from Massachusetts winning silver.
2024 is also the first year that all 22 sports will be broadcasted live. Amongst these are two that have no Olympic equivalents: goalball and boccia. Boccia, a sport similar to both curling and bowling, is the fastest growing sport at the Paralympics. David Smith, three-time boccia gold-medalist, explained to the IPC the significance of having these sports live streamed, saying, “I’ve been able to show what I can do …[it’s] quite emotional too; that finally boccia is getting the recognition it deserves.”
Despite the record breaking year, advocates say that the Paralympics still doesn’t receive the same enthusiasm that the Olympics does. In an article published in Time Magazine, author Shelley Zalis explained that, “Despite the remarkable achievements of these athletes, Paralympians often lack the same media coverage, sponsorship, and cultural fanfare that their Olympic counterparts receive.” Paralympic athletes also don’t receive equal pay for their medals in much of the world. Hong Kong’s athletes have the biggest disparity, with Paralympic athletes earning approximately $190,00 per gold medal, which, while double what they earned in Tokyo, is still far less than the nearly $770,000 earned by Olympic gold-medalists.
However, the importance of the Paralympics cannot be overstated, and its impact on athletes and the world as a whole, has been profound. After the 2012 London Paralympics, 1 in 3 UK adults said that it had changed their view on people with disabilities, and this perspective has only grown in recent years.
CRLS reflects this growth, too. Since 2020, CRLS students have the opportunity to participate in Unified Sports, sports that provide an opportunity for athletes with and without intellectual disabilities to compete together. Mr. Brochu and Mr. Chase, Unified Sport coaches, told the Register Forum that inclusive sports “provide individuals with a chance to learn a different perspective, embrace challenges they may not have experienced before, and provide a lens that success or achievement can appear in many different ways.” Students can support CRLS’s Unified athletes by attending their fall basketball games.
