September 17: Paralympic's spark huge
changes
It is sad that as you read this the end of the Paralympic Games in
Beijing has arrived.
The Closing Ceremony is one of only a few events scheduled for the last day. After the hoopla and hollering of the fireworks the crowds and athletes will disperse to meet again London in four years time.
I have now attended three Paralympics. My opinion of them has not changed. They are quite simply, beautiful, marvellous and bloody wonderful! (In fact cop these words from my keyboard; All Black tours are wonderful, the Rugby World Cup is great, the Olympic Games are sensational - but the Paralympics are the best - and you can quote me on that!)
And this time the event was perhaps the best of the Paralympics I have seen. The Paralympic Games have come a long way. We know its origins date back to games being organised for injured soldiers after WWII at Stoke Mandeville in England but in the last 12 years the promotion of Paralympic spirit has leapt forward. More than ever they are an event of significance.
No more empty stadiums
Even as recently as 1996 the grandstands were empty in Atlanta, Georgia. Now in Beijing they were packed at every session. The 'Para' games, if you'll pardon the expression, used to be about wobbly people enjoying themselves with times and distances not meaning much. Now it is about committed athletes competing at their own level in the deepest of competitive spirit.
Sure their records don't match those of the body-beautiful Olympics but the Paralympic athletes use the Games as part of a public return to full life after a traumatic injury. Or a chance to show that a birth difference is nothing. Here in Beijing the Games really stepped up from Sydney and Athens, which were great in themselves.
In the past the use of disabled games events to alert all peoples in society to the problems and plight of wheelchair people (or those with significant visual, body or leg handicaps) has noticeably improved ordinary able-bodied people's awareness. It has been much more so in China.
The bandied-about figure here is that there are 83,000,000 disabled people in China. 12 million of them are blind. In the old days of Chairman Mao people who were considered 'unusual' at birth were not permitted to marry in case they produced any more of the same type of person. Such ignorance has extended here in recent times to disabled people being asked to eat in another room in their own homes when visitors arrived, or to few ramps existing for easy wheelchair access to apartment blocks.
Wide-ranging impact
Consequently there were very few people in wheelchairs ever seen on the streets of this massive country. And no guide dogs. All that is changing and the Beijing Paralympics can hold their head up high as having been a major influence in the evolution of attitude. In the Opening Ceremony's TV coverage there was mention of the guide dog 'Lucky' who was seen as the first-ever trained guide dog permitted on the streets. In the northern provinces a dog college has recently opened to great government fanfare.
There are now also tens of thousands of ramps designed to ease wheelchair access now. All new hotels have to have them. Many restaurants too. They are also in position with entry and exit signs at major buildings. At significant tourist sites the same occurs. The wheelchair bound NZ Chief de Mission Duane Kale remembers being carried up the Great Wall of China by local soldiers a few years ago now there is a modified gondola in place for those like him. These kinds of changes came about because of the Paralympics presence. Now the world will watch China continue this important social development.
Unique event
I admit that to outsiders looking in the charm of the Paralympics might be initially hard to grasp. It is an event like no other in the world where one really has to attend to grasp its warmth, courage, and very human stories. Quite simply, there are stories behind every athlete. Out of war injuries, or misfortune of a birth defect or home or street accident came stories galore. Every athlete was triumph of the human spirit.
[A slight digression; I remember at Sydney in 2000 there were only 17 men in line for selection for the Australian sitting-down volleyball team. Whereas Bosnia-Herzegovina chose their team from 350 contenders.]
And you can discover your own self at the Paralympics. You find yourself biting back tears every day. The tears are for the many hundreds of examples of people you see in competition who are battling and beating the odds against them succeeding in any sport in their lives. But don't cry in sympathy; let your tears be instead in pride for what is possible to achieve.
A final word; part of the greatness of attending this Paralympics has been in the ease of our everyday dealings with the New Zealand team. I say bravo to them for their generosity towards the TVNZ staff who imposed ourselves quite often on their concentration. We did this as the only New Zealand media representatives here.
NZ Herald's shameful effort
The once admired New Zealand Herald which was so scornful of TVNZ's Olympic Games coverage, even down to headlining over two or three words uttered by broadcasters in live situations, clearly do not hold the Paralympics in any regard at all. They should be now be keeping their heads down in shame.
They trumpet at being New Zealand's largest circulating paper but they deigned to send not one person to cover this wonderful event. (Oops sorry, one of their weekend columnists, working from Auckland, did write a piece about the Para's which has been passed around New Zealand and laughed at. It contained many quotes and story lines which strongly resembled an article published by a different writer in a British paper days earlier. Naughty, naughty Royal NZH.)
The New Zealand team here was superbly lead by Duane Kale. Nothing was a problem to this former Paralympic Champion. His New Zealand team under his leadership and example were all approachable, open-faced and confident young people. Of course I especially enjoyed young Sophie Pascoe from Lincoln and Cameron Leslie, the AUT student from Auckland.
They were two young kids who I would imagine must have had some tough times in life. But did they let the fact that between them they only have three limbs put them off being totally normal Kiwi kids? Nope, not one bit. They were always available and deservedly became great gold medal champions.
They were part of the New Zealand Paralympics team which
represented themselves and our country superbly here. And this
columnist was very proud to report on them.
