Every four years, athletes from around the world come to a shared stage and compete in the sports they are best at. As these athletes are put on a pedestal, they must compete at high rates. No, I am not talking about the Olympics but rather the Paralympics. The biggest summertime sporting event should be the Paralympics, not the Olympics. If you thought I was talking about the former of these two events, you are like the millions of people in the world who only watch the Olympics. For years, the Paralympics have been trying to get the same excitement as the Olympics and have failed.
The Paralympic Games first started in 1960, which seems like a while ago, but compared to the Olympic Games, which were created nearly 70 years prior in 1896, it seems like an afterthought. (Paralympic.org)
Olympians are applauded every year for their performances, which they do exceptionally well, time and time again. Paralympians who have performed feats to higher extremes are rarely applauded and constantly pushed under the rug. This “higher extreme” involves athletes like Carson Clough—a D1 lacrosse player up until 2019, when he was injured in a boating accident that caused him to lose his right leg. He had to relearn basic motor skills, and his case can be compared to the approximate four thousand others who did the same. Inspiring stories like these of Paralympians like Clough are overshadowed by the promotion, celebrity advertisements and ads for able-bodied athletes that have the stage for weeks.
If the Paralympics wants to continue to strive for even a sliver of the viewership the Olympics gets, then they need to start doing a better job promoting it. Especially in Paris 2024’s case, the Paralympic Committee needs to completely reevaluate their advertising pursuits, namely their TikTok content. For example, a video of a blind triathlon athlete looking for his bike was made to look like he was playing the piano received over four million views when put under a Beethoven audio with the caption “Para Triathlon is swim, bike, and air piano”(@paralympics on TikTok). To see the official account posting something that, at heart, is making fun of a blind athlete for not being able to see, is quite disappointing. This type of marketing is one failed attempt that, when added to the years of lack of coverage, explains why the Paralympics are in this position. In 2016, 21,200 articles were written about Olympic athletes compared to an underwhelming 2,400 articles written about the Paralympics (Inside the Games).
Statistics aside, every four years, people are abuzz with big names like Simon Biles, Michael Phelps, Tom Daley, Alex Morgan and numerous others. But naming a Paralympian athlete is much more difficult. Every four years, you can watch Olympic speed walking on over 15 channels and streaming services, but I have difficulty finding even one Paralympic track and field event. If even just a fraction of the attention that is put on Olympians is put on Paralympians, maybe things could change. The Paralympics are about having people who have been seen as inferior because of visible disabilities shine. For others to constantly make decisions that result in the Paralympians’ chances to shine being overlooked, as they already are every day, is concerning. To remedy this recurring issue, the Paralympic committee should go back to the drawing board. This may involve taking steps like holding the events a month earlier than the Olympics instead of after, when viewers are Olympic-ed out, or the biggest step of them all, hiring a new social media manager. The Paralympics and athletes deserve more.