Do you have any idea why the Paralympics are just as popular as the Olympics in the UK?
Right. One might as well ask why the Americans are not contenders for the men’s football (soccer, FIFA) World Cup or why they aren’t in the medal round of the “regular” Olympic badminton. The US competitive-sport world, on the athlete-development side, is overwhelmingly a private concern where “gate receipts, sponsorship, TV rights” are the dominant sources of funding and thus the attention is given to the events that raise those.
Yes, that does create a circular phenomenon where people who have never heard of paralympians do not follow or support paralympians who therefore always train on a shoestring and compete in obscurity so nobody knows to support them…etc. Hard to break from unless in the next TV rights contract IOC includes a requirement that the winning bidder must commit at least X% as much air time and resources to the Paralympics as to the regular Games.
FWIW even with a lot of the “regular” Olympic events the average member of the US public is hardly even conscious of what’s up in that sport until the actual Games or a World Championship are on, and then only to cheer Team USA in the events the network hypes up.
One factor which has improved the success rate of British Olympic and Paralympic sports is ‘Lottery funding’. We have a national lottery, the profits from which are distributed to good causes - charities, for eg - but significantly underfunded sports. Which means we’re getting success in sports we had previously hardly heard of.
I actually can’t decide if this an honest question, a set-up to a trick question, or some snide sidewards swipe to the paralympics themselves - could you please clarify?
If it’s the latter (which I hope & will assume for the basis of this answer), then they are popular for the same reasons any other international level competitive sports competition is popular - it’s the best in the world in their particular category competing against each other at the very highest level – it’s a fabulous competition and makes compelling viewing. Just as the Olympics was before it.
In parallel to this, many of the competitors have overcome a massive and life-changing accident or disease that has led to their specific disability. Their individual stories of how this adversity was faced and ultimately overcome to bring them to the point of achieving the pinnacle of their chosen sport also adds a poignancy to the overall competitiveness, bringing a greater depth of public interest and also a groundswell of communal pride in the competitors representing our country. The following and support for all the athletes has been simply incredible.
It’s a real shame to me that certain countries deemed the Olympics finished several weeks agao, when it really only ended, in spectacular fashion, last night.
Couldn’t put the rebuttal any better than Aro
+1
+2
Thanks guys.
Without wishing to hijack the intent of the thread away from the initial premise of the OP, I would like to draw attention to a recent 90 min. documentary called ‘The Best of Men’ about Stoke Mandeville hospital and the birth of the Paralympic movement, for those that have access to it. It’s available on BBC iPlayer at the moment, and way well be available on Youtube or other places, I’m not sure. But if you get a chance to watch it, please do so, it may well change your outlook on the value of the games.
It was a simple one sentence question so I do not know how much clearer I could have made it. Let’s just assume I wasn’t trying to be an asshole and was just asking an honest question. Thanks for the answer though.
Is that true just this year, when they are in London, or every Olympic year?
It’s only been since 1988 that they’ve immediately followed the main Olympic games.
Are you seriously comparing the US to Australia, a country with about 10% of the population? I don’t know if the OP is right or not, but if Australia is outperforming (or even competing with) the US in the number of medals, something has to be up…
Exactly right. As an Englishman I can assure you that the average Brit in the past was barely aware of the Paralympics. It’s only the facts that this Olympiad the Paralympics and Olympics have both been staged here and the one has directly followed the other that has ensured wider coverage and greater publicity (thus more funding) in the years leading up to the events. It’s a bit rich to start puffing out our chests and trumpeting our virtues in relation to those awful Americans on such a basis as this.
The OP’s argument hasn’t a leg to stand on.
Yes, that something is that the US does not care enough about the paralympics to pour enough money into competing.
I, too, wondered about the difference in the medals tables. Thing is, quite a few Paralympians are ex-service people with disabilites, which is possibly why some war-torn countries have been doing very well (ex-service people are more likely to have discrete disabilities and are more likely to have been young and fit when injured than the average disabled person); the US has a lot of ex-service people with disabilities. It should be doing very well, on a par with its olympic achievements.
As to people in the US simply not being interested in the Olympics… well, that’s hardly a praiseworthy excuse, and also not very plausible, unless you think the Paralympics are huge in, say, Tunisia, which came below the US in the tables but has a much smaller country size.
Nah, the Paralympics has been a lot bigger in the UK this year for obvious reasons, but it’s been big for the last few years too. SanVito mentioned Tanni Grey-Thompson being made a Dame - that didn’t happen yesterday.
The OP mentioned Australia:
And so did Broomstick:
Which is why Bricker asked this:
Praiseworthy is an interesting choice of words. Did anyone praise Americans for not having much interest in the Paralympics? There seems to be some sort of assumption that the United States is somehow at fault because they win fewer medals at the Paralympics. If you or the OP believes that U.S. standings at the Paralympics points to some flaw in the American character then just spit it out rather than beating around the bush.
Once we figure it out maybe we can work on figuring out why Americans don’t like soccer.
Population size maybe ?
Alright, fair enough. Still, the fact that Australia, a very similar country but with 10% of the population, is competing with the US for numbers of medals does bring up questions. This is not about a single sport (of course Australia would kick the USA’s ass in Rugby) but about pretty much all athletics performed by people with a certain type of disability. Like I said, I’m not 100% sure the OP has it nailed, but there has to be a reason why Paralympic sports do not enjoy the same stand in the US that they do in other comparable countries.
Ade Adepitan has also had a reasonably high public profile, although I doubt most people could have told you his name apart from “that wheelchair basketball guy”. He competed in 2004 in Athens.
No need to be defensive - I’m not picking fault with the American ‘character.’ But yes, if a country does far better at the Olympics than at the Paralympics then there has to be some reason behind it. It doesn’t happen randomly.
I don’t see ‘Americans are less interested than other countries in seeing disabled atheletes compete’ as being an excuse that should be just brushed aside, but I also don’t see it as the reason for the difference, or at least not all the reason. If it were true, it would mean that Brits, Russians etc were more positive about people with disabilities, and I’m not sure I’d believe that; also, that actually would be a comment about the American ‘character.’
Maybe it is something to do with the lack of a good welfare system for people with disabilities (compared to Western Europe, at least)? But then, does Russia have much of that? I doubt it somehow. There must be something more to it than that.
I’m not sure that random chance doesn’t play a pretty big role, at least when comparing the results of smaller countries. A small country can happen to have one very talented athlete that can sway the results. It’s certainly happened at the main Olympic games.