Two weeks ago, Australian Paralympian Curtis McGrath posted a cryptic message on social media. The paracanoeist, who took up the sport after losing his legs in an explosion while serving with the Australian army in Afghanistan, has won three gold medals over the past two Paralympics. But on Instagram, he posted an image which read: “I won’t be participating at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.”
The shock that one of Australia’s leading gold medal contenders would be absent in Paris subsided with a swipe left. “I will be competing,” the next image said. “Paralympians have often been described by media as ‘participants’ and not ‘competitors’. At Paris 2024, it’s time we set the record straight.”
The social media campaign, orchestrated by the International Paralympic Committee to challenge “language bias”, underscored the complicated context in which the Paris Games begin on Wednesday. The Paralympics are both an elite international sporting event, and an ongoing campaign for inclusion and against disability discrimination. The last Games, in Tokyo, came with a different campaign: #WeThe15 – the estimated percentage of the global population with a disability.
But while the language McGrath and others took aim at is simple enough to address, there are much more complex dilemmas under the surface. How should coverage of the Paralympics blend these dual aspects?
Take the adjective “inspiring”, which will be used frequently in the weeks ahead. Many stories of Paralympic success follow an orthodox format. The para-athlete has experienced immense hardship: for McGrath, an improvised explosive device; for wheelchair basketballer Jannik Blair, a childhood car accident at the family farm; for emerging para-swimming sensation Alexa Leary, a bike accident she was not expected to survive; for runner Jaryd Clifford, a diagnosis of juvenile macular degeneration as a toddler. Then they found sport and thrived, or so the narrative goes, overcoming the trauma of their disability through sporting triumph.
These stories are objectively remarkable and inspiring. But the tropes are also flattening, two-dimensional. They might even unintentionally undermine the wider campaign for disability inclusion in society. As wheelchair racer Madison de Rozario recently told the ABC, “if the only way we decide disability is acceptable is if it’s this high-performing, unattainable goal, then we’re not doing justice to the entire community”.
De Rozario is the face of Australia’s Paralympic team, and after initially feeling uneasy with the assumption she would use her role to be a disability advocate, the 30-year-old has come to embrace the platform. “We can’t view disability as a positive or a negative – it’s neither of those things,” she told the Guardian after winning two gold medals in Tokyo. “It’s neither good nor bad, it just is.”
Set to be one of Australia’s joint flag-bearers in Paris, de Rozario added recently: “I don’t want people that look like me to watch the Paralympic Games and want to be a Paralympian. I want young kids with a disability and their families and their friends to watch the Paralympics and just see endless potential in themselves and in kids with a disability. And you want to see every person from every kind of walk of life doing anything and everything they want to do.”
For some members of Australia’s 160-strong Paralympic team, these issues will be front of mind over the coming 12 days, as they mix sporting success with activism on an international stage. For others, their focus will be entirely in the pool or on the track.
As much is to be expected; we do not expect our Olympians to be social advocates (although some do much commendable advocacy – including during the Games), and nor should there be any expectation that Paralympians will be spokespeople for the 15% of the global population (the Australian estimate of people with a disability is higher, at about 20%).
To the pool, track and other spectacular Parisian arenas then: Australia has dozens of gold medal prospects, with competitors fielded in 17 of the 22 Paralympic sports. Athletics, swimming and cycling have been Australia’s traditional strong suits, and the likes of joint flag-bearers de Rozario and para-swimming veteran Brenden Hall will hope to continue that trend.
Australia is also a powerhouse in several Paralympic team sports, including wheelchair rugby and wheelchair basketball; following relative disappointment in these disciplines in Tokyo, a better showing in Paris is expected.
Australia’s historic success at the Paris Olympics has set up a potential bumper decade ahead, and the same is expected from the Paralympics – a golden generation ahead for Australia’s para-athletes. The home Games in Brisbane in 2032 will have a catalysing effect on para-sport in Australia; in June, the federal government announced a major funding package for high-performance sport, including an additional $54m for para-sport. Paralympic Australia hailed it as “the single biggest increase in Paralympic investment by an Australian government”.
There is a clear home Games effect for the Paralympics: Australia’s best showing was Sydney 2000, with the 63 gold medals won three-times as many as the most recent haul of 21 golds in Tokyo. The golden decade begins now, and Australia’s Paralympic team will be hoping to mirror the recent success of their Olympic counterparts.
For those watching along at home, and particularly for media outlets covering the Games, the challenge is to strike the right balance: nuanced recognition of the human stories alongside appreciation for astounding athletic feats, in a larger context where people with a disability still face widespread discrimination and human rights abuse (as exhaustively evidenced by the Disability royal commission).
As McGrath and others pointed out earlier this month, Paralympians in Paris are not participating, they are competing. But they are also doing much more besides. The unfortunate paradox of the Games is that, in an ableist world, there will always be an underlying political dimension to Paralympians excelling on the global stage. But first and foremost, the Paralympics are an incredible sporting event – and there will be plenty of remarkable athletic achievements from Australians in the days ahead.
