Steve Bailey’s
history of the Paralympic movement, Athlete First, is a dense
but enjoyable account of an exciting athletic tradition. The
book begins by tracing the development of the Paralympic movement
from the establishment of the first organized sports for people
with disabilities through the 2004 Paralympic Games.
Bailey credits German neurosurgeon Ludwig Guttmann for establishing
organized sports for people with disabilities. Guttmann, who founded
the Stoke Mandeville Spinal Injuries Unit in 1944, had used sports
in the rehabilitation process and saw the benefits of competition between
people with similar injuries. The Stoke Mandeville games opened the
same day as the 1948 London Olympics. Guttmann was also involved in
the creation of the International Sports Organization for the Disabled,
which provided competitive opportunities for people with disabilities
other than spinal injuries.
Having separate organizations
for people with different disabilities created a problem: groups
were competing against one another for assistance from the International
Olympic Committee (IOC). Bailey writes that the IOC was “instrumental in prompting confederacy among disability
sports organizations.” In the end, the various groups got together
to form the International Coordinating Committee of World Sports Organizations
for the Disabled (ICC) in 1982. Their goal: “speaking with one
voice.” The result became the Paralympic Games.
The International
Paralympic Committee (IPC) was, “the principal
force for the Paralympic Movement, identifying as its vision: ‘To
enable Paralympic athletes to achieve sporting excellence and inspire
and excite the world.’” In 2003, IPC introduced the new
Paralympic motto: “Spirit in motion.”
Among the challenges
IPC faces is classification of athletes such that athletes with
similar disabilities compete against each other. Such classification
has been an issue since Ludwig Guttmann organized sports for
former spinal patients because it excludes people who don’t
fit a category.
Bailey clearly views
societal failings as a bigger barrier for people with disabilities
than dealing with the physical condition itself. He writes, “Individuals’ impairments become a disability
when the organization of society prevents them from participating fully.” He
continues, “Effectively, society causes the disablement of those
individuals who are impaired in some way. Inflexibility in organizational
policies can be a barrier to enabling normal functioning of persons
with a disability in society, as can cultural representations that
patronize or dehumanize.” Bailey believes it is these barriers
that should be disabled, and sports help to accomplish that. “The
high profile Paralympic movement has served to force communities
to address questions of accessibility and inclusion for persons with
a disability.”
Bailey also cites
the role of sports in creating community. Anyone who’s
every watched sports teams compete has seen that camaraderie.
Though many people
think the “para” in Paralympics refers
to paraplegia, Bailey explains that it actually derives from Greek
and Latin words meaning “alongside” and “similar” respectively.
Use of the word “Olympic” began with Ludwig Guttmann
in 1949, and at first was opposed by the IOC, which saw the word
as its copyright. There have been a variety of names over the years,
but Paralympics has been the official name since 1988.
Bailey notes that
early development of organized sports for people with disabilities
was impeded by the misperception that these sports were about
rehabilitation rather than world championship competition between
elite athletes. The Para-lympic Movement today is helping to
dispel that myth. ![]()
Athlete First, copyright
2008, is published by John Wiley & Sons
Ltd. of Chichester, West Sussex, England. Their email for orders
is cs-books@wiley.co.uk
