This past February marked an event in sports that brought the world together.
There are very few of these. Even though sports is a universal activity in
almost every country, only two events tend to get the world together and stop
the fighting; they are The World Cup in soccer and The Winter and Summer
Olympics. Every four years or so, these events take center stage, and everybody
forgets about the drama going on in the world for a couple of weeks, but there
is an event that also occurs every four years that many people are not aware
of.
Every four years at the same site as either the Summer or
Winter Olympics, there is another sporting event. It is known as the
Paralympics. It is not only sad that the rest of the country does not keep up
with such Paralympics activities such as hockey in the winter and basketball in
the summer, but it is also sad that the United States is the worlds leading
supporter of disability rights but has very little support for its disabled
athletes.
This time the Paralympics are in Sochi as were the Winter
Olympics. For the first time this year, the NBC family of networks presents an
unprecedented 54 hours of coverage of the Paralympics. While the “able-bodied”
Olympics drew a record audience in February, the Paralympics are living up to
low expectations and not drawing nearly as much of an audience. In the United
States or worldwide, credit must be given to other nations as their margin of
support is much greater than that of the United States. This is sad for me because
I recently graduated from a school that promotes disabled individuals; they
even promote a small contingent of disabled sports. So I guess it hits me more
challenging than most who will read this, but I must raise a
question. If we are the world’s leader on disability rights, and we
do not even support disabled athletes, what does that say about our treatment
of disability in this country at all? Just some food for thought. We are not
our disabilities, but we are people and athletes just like everyone else.
The Paralympics close on Sunday, and we will have to wait four
years for the cycle to repeat itself as far as winter sports are concerned.
However, in 2016, the Paralympics summer games will be held. It is my hope by
then that disabled sports are brought into the 21st century and
given the respect and support they deserve, but I doubt that will happen.
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