The Special Olympics
In the 2000 Summer Paralympics there were 120 nations and 3,881 athletes competing in 551 events happening within 18 different sports.
Although these numbers seem rather high, there would be a dramatic decrease in participation for the following years. This devastating decrease was due to the removal of athletes with intellectual disabilities.
Athletes that have an intellectual disability were not allowed to participate in the Paralympics for some time due a cheating scandal that occurred in the Sydney Paralympic Games in 2000.
Shortly after the Spanish basketball team had won the gold medal in the 2000 Summer Paralympics, it was discovered that several members of the winning team had faked their impairments in order to gain an advantage over the other teams. This cheating scandal had eliminated the entire category for athletes with intellectual impairments in the Paralympics for the next few games.
This cheating scandal had shocked the Paralympics completely. Now, the credibility of the system for the testing and classifying was ruined. In order to reevaluate the previous system that failed, the IPC decided to suspend the participation of athletes with intellectual disabilities in order to guarantee fair competition.
Although having fair competition was necessary, many innocent athletes were upset about being excluded from the games.
Nearly 9 years later in 2009, the IPC created a new way to classify and verify athletes with intellectual impairments which allowed them to participate in the 2012 London Paralympics. Athletes with intellectual impairments were able to compete in the same three sports they are allowed to compete in today including swimming, table tennis, and athletics.
The next year, the first Special Olympics Global Congress was held in Morocco in the Summer of 2010. Leaders of the Special Olympics gathered to establish a plan for the next five years for the future development of the events. This gathering was held after the passing of the leader of the global Special Olympics Movement.
The next year, the 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games were held in Athens. There were over 6,000 athletes from 170 countries.
Given the different classification and verification systems used for athletes with intellectual disabilities, I believe that the Special Olympics should remain separate from the Paralympics. Classifications and verifications are already complicated for both the Paralympics and Olympics. Since there is already a system in place for the Special Olympics, I believe they should be two different Games. I also believe that the Special Olympics should remain separate because it allows for the opportunity of other athletes to be involved in each event. Having too many athletes participating in an event is a huge concern to the IPC. Having two separate games would create more room for participants, which supports the main concern of inclusivity.
https://www.specialolympics.org/about/history/building-an-inclusive-world?locale=en
http://committoinclusion.org/special-olympics/
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/opinion/special-olympics-takes-on-the-world.html
Comments
Post a Comment