After Atalanta

Did you know the Paralympic Games began in Vancouver last Friday? OK, I forgot too. Though I knew they were forthcoming. On March 7, the Globe Magazine ran a Q&A column about American sled hockey player and UNH student (woo-hoo!) Taylor Chance, who plays for team USA. I haven't seen where there might be television coverage of any of the Paralympic events, but if you know of any, please share.

On Saturday I did a 5K that benefited a local organization that helps women and their families who have been victims of domestic violence. And though there was a snazzy mug designed by cartoonist Hilary Price who writes and draws Rhymes with Orange , I was actually pleased that the proceeds (over $55,000 I heard) went to a local charity and was put together largely by donations from local businesses. So many charity runs spend a lot of money on advertising and prizes/gifts that, in the end, take away from the actual charity. In the afternoon I managed to catch all of the NBC special on the Paralympics. I thought it was good. A good mix of stories in terms of sports participated in, type of disability, race, age, and "success" at the Beijing Games. Of course the producers could not have known the outcomes when they chose the athletes--not entirely at least--so this may have been more chance than not. There was a good segment on how China has become more aware and accommodating...

NBC is re-airing tomorrow its 90 minute documentary on the most recent Paralympic Games in Beijing. The special follows the athletes as they train and then in competition in China. Note that I found the news of the re-airing in the LA Times and am not certain NBC is airing the show in all time zones. In PT it will be on at 1:30 PM. In other words, check your local listings. I've only read about the show; I have not seen it myself so I cannot say for certain how well it treats the issues. What I am wondering is if the documentary moves beyond or away from the typical two approaches to discussing and presenting differently abled athletes: the super crip stereotype and the victim approach. I myself will be doing this on Saturday (still time and room to register if you're interested), but am going to try to DVR the show.

This article/feature highlights the dominant Dutch Paralympic tennis team and provides some very convincing reasons as to why the team is so successful. The long of the short of it: they get a lot of support from the Dutch tennis federation, which does not distinguish between wheelchair tennis and able-bodied tennis. Also a factor: tennis the second biggest sport in the country with most towns have more than one club. (This does seem curious to me given the comparative lack of Dutch able-bodied tennis players.) It also seems that the Netherlands are much better than say, here, getting newly-disabled people into sports. (I do wonder though if that may change here given the high numbers of disabled soldiers returning from war.) But apparently disabled people there are highly encouraged to participate in sports and are given sport wheelchairs. Sounds like the Netherlands could provide a solid model for other countries to emulate.

...that I meant to post on this weekend but didn't quite get around to. I was buoyed from my usual cynical position by three things that happened Friday evening, which was a very good thing because I had being having a crappy day until then. Anyway, the first thing (only because I am talking about it first--all three happened within about an hour of each other) is that NPR covered the Paralympics. It was a segment on, I believe, All Things Considered. The stars of the games including US swimmer Erin Popovich . The disqualification of an Irish soccer player because he was too able-bodied, and the doping scandals(there were four athletes sent home for steroid abuse). Then I heard on that same NPR station--not sure if it was local or national news--that the Basketball Hall of Fame has formed a committee to look into basketball at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, particularly during segregation. It will review records of teams, players and coaches who have historically b...

South African Natalie Du Toit,who competed in the open water swim in the Olympics a few weeks ago, just earned her first gold medal of Paralympic Games. She is expected to win a few more by the time the games are over. The medal came in the 100M butterfly. She set a world record with her time. The above link also recaps other events at the Paralympic Games which began this past weekend. The US Paralympic team seems to be just as dominant as the US Olympic swimming team. The US won four gold medals in the first day of the meet.

And it what you know about paralympic sports consists of having watched the documentary Murderball and some awareness of wheelchair basketball and/or wheelchair tennis, then you should (like I did) check out this article in The Telegraph that goes though all the medal sports in the Paralympics providing their history, the events offered, which disabilities are accommodated, and how. What I find impressive is the organization of all the events and how they meet the needs of so many athletes. Too bad we won't get to actually see much of it.

Okay so I didn't realize that the current dearth of coverage of the Paralympic Games was because they haven't actually started yet. I had thought that the Paralympic Games occurred immediately after the Olympic Games and I do believe this has happened in the past (Salt Lake City, for example). But not this time. The Games don't start until September 6. In the meantime, check out this article about the first Jordanian, Maha Barghouti, to win Paralympic gold. She did so in table tennis in Sydney, 2000. She is headed to Beijing to compete. Barghouti was named Arab athlete of the year in 2001 and Jordanian sportsperson of the year in 2002. I think those awards are pretty interesting in lights of a few things. First, we seem to think the (dis)abled athletes need categories of their own. Second, when there are not separate categories (I'm not going to get into the whole separate but equal debate here) sometimes it appears that the inclusion of (dis)abled athletes smacks a li...

Forgot to mention another article USA Today that ran during the month of June. I don't know what inspired the newspaper to write so many stories (ok not that many but in comparison to other national media outlets it seems like a lot) but we'll take it--especially when they're covering sports that don't get a lot of coverage, like wheelchair basketball . Of course the coverage is inspired by the upcoming Paralympic Games in Beijing in September because sports that feature (dis)abled athletes rarely get coverage in non-Paralympic years. And it features a winning team, the US women's national team that will be defending its gold medal. So the tone of the story is upbeat but it does not cross the line to gushing. It isn't condescending. The article focuses on the captain Patty Cisneros who is also a coach of the women's wheelchair bball team at University of Illinois. I wish the article had mentioned how few intercollegiate wheelchair teams there are. The way i...

...because that 1) might not be true, 2) seems to be a little too optimistic for a cynic like me, and 3) goes against my extreme suspicion of progress narratives. But no sooner was I discussing in my sport sociology class the dearth of coverage of (dis)abled athletes than I came across three stories about (dis)abled athletes.* The first was in last month's TENNIS which contained a pretty lengthy feature of Canadian quad wheelchair player Sarah Hunter. [The link is actually not to the article which only exists in hard copy in the April issue.] I thought it was a fairly well-done article. It doesn't depict her as some kind of amazing hero or pity her for her injury. It mentioned her female partner and their child to whom Hunter gave birth two years ago without presenting either of these things as somehow unusual for a person in a wheelchair. Then I saw two articles about women's national team wheelchair basketball. There's this one on SI.com--yes, Sports Illustrated is ...