# Inclusion through Sport: A Critical View on Paralympic Legacy from a Historical Perspective

Sylvain Ferez, Sébastien Ruffié, Hélène Joncheray, Anne Marcellini, Sakis Pappous, Rémi Richard

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## To cite this version:

Sylvain Ferez, Sébastien Ruffié, Hélène Joncheray, Anne Marcellini, Sakis Pappous, et al. Inclusion through Sport: A Critical View on Paralympic Legacy from a Historical Perspective. Social inclusion, 2020, 8 (3), pp.224-235. 10.17645/si.v8i3.2735. hal-04065677

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Article

# Inclusion through Sport: A Critical View on Paralympic Legacy from a Historical Perspective

Sylvain Ferez <fnref n="1" />,<fnref n="2" />,*, Sébastien Ruffié <fnref n="3" />, Hélène Joncheray <fnref n="4" />, Anne Marcellini <fnref n="5" />, Sakis Pappous <fnref n="6" />
and Rémi Richard <fnref n="1" />

Submitted: 18 December 2019 | Accepted: 15 June 2020 | Published: 17 August 2020

## Abstract

Through its commitment to universalism, the inclusion of disabled people has become an increasingly prominent objective of the Paralympic Games. To achieve this, the organisers rely on the notion of legacy, which refers to the expected effects of major sporting events on host countries. This notion was initially founded on material aspects and then took an interest in certain intangible sides that were spotted within the organiser's goals and studied in literature. Building on the historical literature about the Paralympic movement's institutionalization, this article shows that this institutionalization took place in a context of tension between disabled communities, depending on their proximity to the Olympic model. What is the impact of this historical legacy in terms of inclusion of the greater number? By shedding light on the historical perspective of the obstacles encountered in the creation of an 'all-disabilities' sporting event, this article aims to discuss and challenge the current perspective on the inclusive legacy of the Paralympic Games.

## Keywords

disability; inclusion; legacy; Paralympic Games; sport

## Issue

This article is part of the issue "Sport for Development: Opening Transdisciplinary and Intersectoral Perspectives" edited by Pascal Delheye (Ghent University, Belgium), Kirsten Verkooijen (Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands), Dan Parnell (University of Liverpool, UK), John Hayton (Northumbria University, UK) and Reinhard Haudenhuyse (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium).

© 2020 by the authors; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY).

## 1. Introduction

For the last 20 years, the organization of mega sport events has been associated with the ambition to leave a legacy (Preuss, 2019). Since the 2012 London Games, having a specific and detailed Paralympic and Olympic

legacy plan has become a prerequisite for candidate cities (Leopkey & Parent, 2012). Inclusiveness has therefore become a crucial goal for every organizing committee. Thus, new big events, such as the Paris bid for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, made the inclusion of disabled people a major priority. Tony Estanguet,

<footnote n="1">¹ Health, Education, Situations of Disability Laboratory, University of Montpellier, 34090 Montpellier, France; E-Mails: sylvain.ferez@umontpellier.fr (S.F.), remi.richard@umontpellier.fr (R.R.)</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² National Centre for Scientific Research, 75016 Paris, France</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ Adaptations to Tropical Climates, Exercise and Health, University of the West Indies, Pointe-à-Pitre 97157, Guadeloupe; E-Mail: sebastien.ruffie@univ-antilles.fr</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ INSEP—The National Institute of Sport, Expertise, and Performance, Paris University, 75006 Paris, France; E-Mail: helene.joncheray@insep.fr</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ Life Course and Inequality Research Centre (LINES), University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; E-Mail: anne.marcellini@unil.ch</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NZ, UK; E-Mail: a.pappous@kent.ac.uk</footnote>

<footnote>* Corresponding author</footnote>
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President of the Paris 2024 Committee, explained that he wished “to use the Games as part of a project to create an inclusive and humanly connected society, which gives everybody a chance” (Paris 2024, 2019). The 2024 Games must therefore reinforce the actions taken by the French government aiming to “make the practice of sports both inclusive and accessible” (Paris 2024, 2019).

In order for this to happen, four main goals have been defined in line with those promoted for the 2012 London Games and 2016 Rio Games. The first one aims to transform the way in which disabled people are perceived. The second goal concerns the issue of accessibility to all sport equipment and to the entire Olympic and Paralympic village. The third goal is to increase the number of memberships to sports federations by 20%—including those which are specifically oriented toward disabled people—while doubling the offer of timeslots available to disabled people on a national scale. Finally, the fourth goal is to develop a centre of excellence for Paralympic sports in the aftermath of the Games.

How can these ambitions, proclaimed during the bid process, be achieved? How can the research concerning the legacy of previous Games help to conceive and construct an inclusive legacy for the next Paralympic Games? The aim of this article is to review existing literature on this topic anew, by historically analysing the institutionalization of the Paralympic movement. Our research stems from a contradiction: How can we reconcile the Paralympic Games’ legacy, which mainly focuses, in a spirit of sporting performance, on the least disabled groups, with the larger goal of including a heterogeneous group? In other words, how can big sporting events promote an inclusive legacy when they focus on a small number of elite athletes?

In order to answer this research question, we propose an integrative review of literature with the aim of combining the different existing perspectives and produce a critical analysis (Snyder, 2019). A non-systematic compendium of research articles, books and book chapters, published in in English or in French, offers the possibility to create a critical qualitative analysis by topic (Torraco, 2005). The goal of this analysis is to highlight the obstacles encountered and subsequently overcome in the creation of major global disability sport events with the aim of gaining a new outlook on the inclusive legacy of the Games. In order to do this, we began by outlining the topics that constitute our literature review: 1) the historical structuring of the sporting movement for disabled people; 2) evaluating the inclusive impact of the Paralympic Games' legacy (1989–2020) through high level performance, representations in the media, and through the effects on promoting access for every type of public to sports clubs.

We will begin here by reviewing the structuring of the Paralympic movement while highlighting the difficulties generated by the bid to take into account disabilities in all their diversity. Far from being a homogenous

group, disabled people show a heterogeneity to which the legacy of major sporting events will likely have trouble responding in a uniform manner, particularly if we consider that high level competition naturally produces more exclusion than inclusion. Next, we will focus on the three main objectives of the immaterial legacy in order to grasp the extent to which they can answer the inclusive ambitions they claim to aim for.

## 2. Access to the Olympics (1960–1989): Difficulties and Politico-Institutional Necessities of Bringing Disabilities Together

The history of the institutionalization of the Paralympic movement is marked by the diverging outlooks of the people involved in its development on both national and international levels (Ruffié, Ferez, & Lantz, 2014). The sport activities in the years 1940 to 1960 as a means of re-education for those with physical impairments (Anderson, 2003), were progressively structured into a competitive practice (Legg & Steadward, 2011). The year 1989 marked a milestone with the recognition of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The IPC grouped together the main sport federations of disabled people. However, this sportivisation, which began in the 1960s, led to many questions during the following decades, concerning notably the multiplicity of disabilities and how they were taken into account. A double perspective for inclusiveness thus came to bear, both in order to allow sport participation for disabled athletes, but also to promote the inclusion of the varied groups of people living daily with physical, sensory and intellectual deficiencies. How can the legacy of high-performance sport, which is selective by nature, be reconciled with the inclusion of a diverse community that can sometimes be very distant from physical excellence?

### 2.1. *From Functional Rehabilitation to Competitive Sports*

The development of physical and sport activities for disabled people is organized, both nationally and internationally, from two specific perspectives linked to the profile of those involved: doctors or disabled people. Depending on the country, and the promoters of disabled sports, two competing outlooks were developed and then turned against each other during the early days of the internationalization of the Paralympic movement. In certain countries, such as England, Japan or Italy, doctors took a firm grasp of sport activities which were seen as an additional tool in the rehabilitation process (Goodman, 1986). In other countries, such as France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland or Slovenia, it was disabled people themselves, often wounded at war, who organized themselves in an attempt to escape from this initial rehabilitative perspective, and instead produce a sportivisation of the movement.
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The first initiative in this matter was the one carried out by Ludwig Guttmann (Brittain, 2011). As a neurosurgeon, specialized in spinal injuries and working for the Stoke Mandeville hospital, Guttmann created a physical activity program for young war-wounded soldiers. Having been faced with numerous medical complications, but also with high suicide rates linked to depression and posttraumatic stress (Anderson, 2003), Guttmann decided to propose sport games to his patients to rekindle their will to live but also as a rehabilitative process (Gold & Gold, 2007). In this manner, physical activities represented, in Guttmann's mind, a medical device aiming to increase the physical capacities of wheelchair users. In this period of post-war reconstruction, the goal was to re-adapt these individuals to society by finding ways to compensate for their disabilities in order to play once more an active part, notably through work (Anderson, 2003). On 28th July 1948, Guttmann inaugurated the first Stoke Mandeville Games, which progressively became an international event for wheelchair users. These sport events, defined through a medical perspective (Bailey, 2008), were also an opportunity for medical specialists to meet and exchange ideas on the subject of rehabilitation through the use of physical activities.

Other initiatives, carried by individuals touched by disability, emerged during the 1950s. Although the goals of these different initiatives were initially similar, the people concerned and the public aimed at were different. For Guttmann, physical activity should only be rehabilitative, from a medical perspective, and only concerned people in wheelchairs. In this outlook, he was quite representative of the promoters, principally professionals from the medical sector, who made propositions "for others," without being concerned themselves by any form of disability (Laville & Sainsaulieu, 1997). For those who were directly affected by war generated disabilities, the perspective was different. They had to suffer the physical, psychological and social difficulties linked to their disabilities. As both beneficiaries and promoters of physical activity, they immediately took into consideration the benefits of physical activity for every physically disabled person, regardless of the nature of the disability. These two perspectives, typical examples of the various initiatives around the world, confronted each other in the 1960s. The international development of disability sports and the institutionalization of the Paralympic movement, such as they are today, are a result of this confrontation.

The Rome 1960 'Olympic Games for Physically Disabled People,' according to the designation of the time, constituted a turning point in the sportivisation process. The annual competitions set up since 1948 by Guttmann with the Stoke Mandeville hospital were, for the first time, transferred to the same site and the same year as the Olympic Games (Ruffié & Ferez, 2013). These Games provided the opportunity to show wounded bodies in a prestigious Olympic arena. They were also an oc-

casion for assembling all the different international leaders of disabled sports, which led to the creation of an International Working Group on Sports for the Disabled. However, there were disagreements between Guttmann, representing the doctors, and some leaders who were in favour of a sportivisation of the movement. For the former, the rehabilitative orientation should remain central and, if competition were to be introduced, it should only concern those people who used wheelchairs. For the latter, the goal should be to organize international sport competitions which would be open to all types of disability (Ferez, Ruffié, & Bancel, 2016).

Guttmann created the International Stoke Mandeville Game Committee in 1959, which became the International Stoke Mandeville Wheelchair Sport Federation in 1960, in order to organize competitions and to popularize his model. In 1964, for the second edition of the Olympic Games for the Physically Disabled, which took place in Tokyo, the World Veteran Foundation decided to play an active role. It was a way for them to provide support for those wounded during war and to consolidate their implication within sports for the physically disabled, initiated several years earlier through their help in organizing the Stoke Mandeville Games (Ruffié et al., 2014). During the Tokyo Games, the International Working Group on Sports for the Disabled became the International Sport Organization for the Disabled, a federation that represented amputees, visually impaired people, those with cerebral palsy, as well as the 'others' category. Both of its first two chairmen came from the World Veteran Foundation. Although both federations regrouped the same leading people, it was a way for the World Veteran Foundation to put brakes on Guttmann and to introduce a new outlook, one which was in favour of granting access to competitions to any person living with a disability. The first two editions of the Olympic Games for the Physically Disabled were nevertheless tinted by Guttmann's medical and paternalistic perspective (Bailey, 2008). In Rome, the opening of the event took place in the presence of the minister for health, and in Tokyo, the athletes were presented as patients (Frost, 2012).

## 2.2. *From Games for Paraplegics to Games for "Every Disability"*

The 1960s were however a time for the multiplication of national and international competitions, which were the trigger for a sportivisation movement. Competitions began to be accessible to any type of disability, which opened the debate concerning access to the Olympic Games for the Physically Disabled, but also concerning the conditions for a sporting organization enabling ansuitable participation for all (Ferez, Ruffié, Issanchou, & Cornaton, 2018). In Tel Aviv (1968), the competitive character of the Games became more prominent. In spite of Guttmann's election as the Head of the International Sport Organization for the Disabled, thus cumulating presidency for the two main international federations of
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

the time, the sporting orientation was ratified by the par-
ticipants themselves who were seeking, from then on-
wards, to prove their excellence through performance.
Records were sought after and comparison with non-
disabled athletes was no longer feared. Nevertheless,
this convergence with competitive sports, following the
non-disabled model, questioned the current possibilities
for inclusion, and therefore also the legitimacy of the
legacy of great Paralympic events. The latter were only
finally open to those who were able to engage in a model
of physical excellence.

In this context and as early as 1970, the International
Sport Organization for the Disabled announced that the
1972 Games would be open to any type of disability
(Ferez, Jamain-Samson, Marin-Duval, & Villoing, 2013).
However, the negotiations with the International Stoke
Mandeville Wheelchair Sport Federation led nowhere.
The 1972 Heidelberg Games, to which once again only
athletes in wheelchairs participated, were disrupted
by amputee athletes asking for their right to partici-
pate to be recognized. At the beginning of 1971, the
International Sport Organization for the Disabled had
made a stand for the 1976 Montreal Games to be open to
all. In reality, only visually impaired and amputee athletes
participated alongside those in wheelchairs. Athletes
with cerebral palsy had to wait until the 1980 Arnhem
Games to be integrated. For the members of the ‘others’
category, integration happened on a case by case basis,
as a function of specific classifications being accepted on
an international level (Legg & Steadward, 2011)

Throughout the 1970s, the integration of the differ-
ent publics during the Olympic Games for the Physically
Disabled led to a strong debate. It was difficult to imag-
ine sport events which would be specific to each dis-
ability without it disrupting the competitive orientation.
In this context, national and international competitions
were a good opportunity to put classification systems to
test, allowing the competitive participation of everyone.
Following an initial medical approach, it was a functional
orientation which was then favoured in order to allow
competitions between athletes with different disabilities
but similar levels of functionality within a given sport con-
text (Ferez et al., 2018; Marcellini & Lantz, 2014). The clas-
sifications which were adopted however generated dis-
satisfaction, and those who were the most distant from
the sporting model, became dissident. Indeed, these clas-
sifications, whilst creating participation conditions for
athletes with different types of disability to one same
highly competitive event, also ratified the setting aside of
lower performing athletes. In this context, how can great
sporting events, which are founded on principles such
as competition and exclusion, be considered as generat-
ing inclusion? In 1978, the Cerebral Palsy International
Sport and Recreation Association decided to leave the
International Sport Organization for the Disabled. In
1980, the International Blind Sport Association decided
to follow suit (Issanchou, Lantz, & Liotard, 2013). Tension
punctuated the movement in a context where the desire

to get closer to the non-disabled sport movement was
only growing stronger. On this point, the IOC was very
clear: Exchanges on the topic of a possible recognition
would only be possible if the organizations for disabled
sports presented a unique spokesman.

In spite of their disagreements, the different inter-
national structures for sport for the physically disabled
strove to create a single unified organization. In 1982,
the International Coordinating Committee Sports for the
Disabled in the World was made up of the International
Sport Organization for the Disabled, the International
Stoke Mandeville Games Federation (their new name
since 1972), the Cerebral Palsy International Sport and
Recreation Association and the International Blind Sport
Association. The International Coordinating Committee
Sports for the Disabled in the World opened the path
to recognition by the non-disabled sports movement.
A meeting with the president of the IOC took place
in 1983, leading to the instigation of sport demonstra-
tions during the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Games and dur-
ing the Summer Games in Los Angeles. The evolution
of the different classifications remained nevertheless
controversial, and the prospect of a single organization
was a source of concern, notably on the matter of filia-
tions for strongly diversified groups such as mentally dis-
abled individuals. In 1986, the International Committee
of Sports for the Deaf and the International Sports
Federation for Persons with Intellectual Disability joined
the International Coordinating Committee Sports for the
Disabled in the World (Ruffié & Ferez, 2013), which con-
stituted a major opening since, up until then, only or-
ganizations for people with motor or perceptive disabili-
ties were concerned. In 1988, during the Seoul Games,
a decision was made: The Paralympic Games—the ac-
cepted term at the time—would then onwards take place
every four years in the same location as the Olympic
Games. This only really became systematic following the
Atlanta Games of 1996. In September 1989, the IPC was
officially created, which provided an official recognition
from the IOC.

At the end of the 1980s, the long and slow integra-
tion process, initiated during the 1970s and based on
the Para-Olympic Games, finally led to the creation of
a Paralympic movement federating athletes with differ-
ent types of disability that presented a strongly heteroge-
neous front. The creation of the IPC, alongside the orga-
nization of Olympic and Paralympic Games in the same
location, within the framework of a common organiza-
tion, constituted crucial steps. It was more or less at the
same time that the use of the legacy concept started to
develop. At this time, it was neither associated to the in-
clusion issue, nor even to the Paralympic Games.

3. Evaluating the Inclusive Impact of the Paralympic
Games' Legacy (1989–2020)

The concept of the legacy of mega sporting events is
linked to an effort to exercise power over the future,
<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

through an attempt to anticipate and master the effects
that an event will produce before, during, and after its or-
ganization. This concept is different from the one of her-
itage, which historians use in order to designate a past
which is reconstituted from the production of meaning-
ful traces supporting a present identity. The concept of
legacy can therefore not be grasped independently from
its link with the concepts of governance and sustainabil-
ity (Leopkey & Parent, 2017). Using this concept, it was
the managerial outlook of political and sporting organi-
zations which, from the 1980s onwards, constructed the
vision of the social impact of mega sporting events.

After 1984, it was the Olympic movement itself that
introduced the prospect of a legacy within the specifica-
tions which were distributed to each organizing commit-
tee. At the beginning, the concept only related to “tan-
gible” aspects (Gratton & Preuss, 2008). Then, more in-
tangible dimensions progressively made an appearance
after the year 2000. An interest for the political, cultural
or social legacy of great sporting events emerged at the
same time as the reflection concerning the impact of the
Paralympic Games began to gain momentum (Mangan &
Dyreson, 2010).

Early research concerning the effects of the
Paralympic Games, and notably concerning the me-
dia coverage of the Paralympic Games (Marcellini &
De Léséleuc, 2001; Marcellini, Lefebvre, De Léséleuc, &
Bui-Xuan, 2000), did not refer to the concept of legacy,
but rather to those of visibility and social integration. In
the early 2000s, the concept of legacy was scarcely em-
ployed in the related literature. When the term ‘legacy’
appeared, it was never related to the issue of disabled
people’s inclusion. It was only after 2010, with the prepa-
ration of the 2012 London Games, that it was considered
in order to explore the specificities of the Paralympic
legacy (Leopkey & Parent, 2012). Although the goal of in-
tegrating individuals who are able to prove their physical
excellence is operational, what remains of the inclusion
of the different disabilities? In this case, the notion of
inclusion is clearly distinct from the concept of integra-
tion. Integration consists, for a group of individuals, to
take part in a new group, while transforming it and cre-
ating a new collective whole (Marcellini, 2005). As for
inclusion, this supposes setting up a material, human
and conceptual environment allowing everyone’s partic-
ipation, without discrimination, and with the expression
of human rights (Fougeyrollas, 2010). Using this, can
we consider that the legacy of great events such as the
Paralympic Games, constructed on the basis of excluding
lower performances, can allow inclusion?

Early literature focused upon the tangible legacy, us-
ing two indicators: the impact of the organization of the
Games on financial investments in favour of Paralympic
sports (Darcy & Appleby, 2011) and the extent to which
the host city makes its infrastructures (sporting and
other) accessible (Legg & Steadward, 2011). As we will
see further on, the intangible stakes of the Paralympic
legacy were only considered at a later time, and follow-

ing three main indicators: The development of high-level
Paralympic sports, the evolution of the manner in which
the media represented Paralympic athletes, and the in-
crease in participation of disabled people. We propose
to review the related literature concerning these three
aspects of the intangible legacy, and to discuss their ef-
fects on inclusion.

3.1. *Developing High-Level Paralympics for Inclusion?*

Research concerning the trajectories followed by top-
level Paralympic athletes reveals strongly diversified
paths, with many different social obstacles or facilitating
elements. On the subject of these latter factors making
high-level practice easier, three main recurring elements
were revealed: 1) early sporting socialization thanks to
the support of a network on which the athlete can count;
2) the decisive role of coaches in the commitment to
high-level practice; and 3) the strength of the affiliation
with the ‘non-disabled’ sport environment.

On a first level, engaging in recreational sporting ac-
tivities at an early age constitutes an essential basis for
later sport success (Castaneda & Sherrill, 1999; Wang &
DePauw, 1995). In this manner, for most of the athletes
studied by McLoughlin, Weisman, Castaneda, Gwin, and
Graber (2017), taking part in competitive events was pre-
ceded by the experience of several recreational sport-
ing activities. This early engagement also instigates a
family and friend support structure which, in turn, pro-
motes access to high performance sport (McLoughlin
et al., 2017; Ruddell & Shinew, 2006). The support pro-
vided by friends, peers, teammates, coaches and teach-
ers constitutes an absolute precondition for engaging in
high-level sports practice (Hutzler & Bergman, 2011).

On a second level, coaches play a crucial role in ini-
tiating and pursuing careers within high-performance
sports. They become in turn ‘recruiters,’ ‘mentors,’ ‘role
models’ and/or ‘personal support’ (McLoughlin et al.,
2017). However, several studies deplore the lack of spe-
cialized coaches able to provide training programs which
are adapted to Paralympic athletes (Liow & Hopkins,
1996). Other authors highlighted a stronger emphasis
on the medical and rehabilitation character rather than
on the athletics and competitive character of sport
(Townsend, Cushion, & Smith, 2017). The medico-social
approach to adapted physical activity thus conveys a
‘non-disabled’ ideology that vectors a symbolic violence
against these athletes (Townsend, Huntley, Cushion, &
Fitzgerald, 2018).

On the third and last level, athletes who engage in a
Paralympic career tend to highlight their links with ‘non-
disabled’ peers and with the ‘non-disabled’ sports com-
munity, insisting on the role they played in their sport-
ing commitment (Beldame, Lantz, & Marcellini, 2016;
McLoughlin et al., 2017). A number of athletes who were
born with a disability lived their first sporting experiences
with non-disabled friends, within a recreational frame-
work located outside the boundaries of federal sport
<figure><img src="image_7.png" /></figure>

(Castaneda & Sherrill, 1999) or within the 'non-disabled' sporting clubs which made the necessary adjustments in order to be able to welcome them.

On the opposite side, research points to a series of obstacles in accessing high-performance sports for disabled people: 1) injury, to which Paralympic athletes are more often exposed than Olympic ones (Davis & Ferrara, 1995; Martin, 2015; Nyland, Snouse, Anderson, Kelly, & Sterling, 2000); 2) complexity and fluctuations of the classification system (Howe & Jones, 2006; Howe & Kitchin, 2017; Hutzler & Bergman, 2011; Peers, 2009, 2012); 3) cost of practicing high-level sports (McLoughlin et al., 2017; Wheeler et al., 1999); 4) difficulty of finding a sports club and lack of information concerning the sporting offer for disabled people (Taliaferro & Hammond, 2016); and 5) difficulty in accessing sporting infrastructures (Beldame et al., 2016; Burlot, Richard, & Joncheray, 2018).

All in all, the facilitating elements and obstacles evidenced through research weigh differently and have very different ways of expressing themselves depending on the various types of disability (physical, sensory or mental) being considered. Although the legacy of the Paralympic Games aims to improve the participation conditions for the diversity of disabilities, using high-level sports as a basis is questionable. It provides visibility for certain disabled bodies, but can only highlight the multiplicity of the situations experienced depending on the disability with great difficulty. Here, once more, the legacy sought for everybody is limited by a narrow vision of disability and handicap, leaving aside the ideal of an inclusive society while promoting only those individuals who are the closest to the dominant model.

## 3.2. Sparking Inspiring Representations in the Media

Although media coverage for disabled athletes was almost inexistent before the 1990s, coverage has nowadays become an essential element of the so-called social legacies. It thus becomes important to discuss the role that the portrayal of disability plays in the construction of an event's legacy for the inclusion process. In this context, research has looked into three levels of media coverage: coverage of the sporting event as a whole, coverage of each competition, and coverage of Paralympic athletes. All the information produced concerned visual data, that is to say signs and traces in the form of images that were produced and broadcasted during the event (Terrenoire, 2006), whether these were photos, drawings, paintings or films.

Research in the field of sociology provides evidence of the strong increase in media coverage of the Paralympics after the 1992 Barcelona Games, which was then confirmed with the 1996 Atlanta Games and the 2000 Sydney Games. A larger part of these studies focused on the press coverage of these events (De Léséleuc, Pappous, & Marcellini, 2010; Pappous et al., 2007; Pappous, Marcellini, & De Léséleuc, 2011; Solves, Pappous, Rius, & Kohe, 2018). Studies concerning television

coverage were sparser (Paillette, Delforce, & Wille, 2002), in the same way as those looking into the overall media coverage of Paralympic sport (Gilbert & Schantz, 2008; Schantz & Gilbert, 2012). Over time, these various studies showed that the ways in which the Olympics and Paralympics are treated became progressively more similar. It must be said that, although the two events maintained a certain distance from one another, from 1992 onwards, they systematically took place in the same location. The understanding, by the management board, of mega-events and their potential side-effects also contributed to closing the gap in terms of image control. Step by step, the unification of the two events within the same organization promoted their association within the media.

A second series of research concerning representations in the media looked into the appearance of disability sport figures (Marcellini, 2007), resulting in three observations: 1) the growing importance of how technological advances are depicted; 2) a promotion of the sporting action and of the sporting effort; and 3) the exhibition of constructed bodies in reference to the sporting body, muscled, efficient, controlled and mastered (Lebel, Marcellini, & Pappous, 2010). A turn was initiated in the media coverage of disabled athletes after the year 2000. Whereas images of racing wheelchairs were initially dominant, they soon were eclipsed by Flexfoot running prosthetics, the symbol of the technologisation of human beings (Issanchou, 2014). Oscar Pistorius was the incarnation of the 'supercrip' figure who fascinated the wider public as much as it worried the sporting institution, infsofar as it casted a doubt on the origin of the performances produced (Lebel et al., 2010; Silva & Howe, 2012). In an opposite manner, the lack of media coverage of athletes with mental disabilities contributed to concealing the development of high-level sport for those individuals (Bancel, Cornaton, & Marcellini, 2018; Marcellini, 2007).

In the end, although the media provided the opportunity of broadcasting positive images of the sporting disabled body, they remained standardized in reference to the non-disabled sporting body. In this way, a reference to a tibial amputee, standing, will be preferred over the image of the one in a wheelchair, sitting. What is more, the conveyed representations, constructed on powerful muscles or on modern technologies, create a distance between those who are close to an ideal and those who irremediably drift away from it with each of their peers' accomplishments. Indeed, are they even still peers? Although they give another outlook, the produced images only concern those who are the most capable of attaining the non-disabled sporting ideal. The situation of those with mental disabilities reveals here the limits of the expected change in representations.

## 3.3. Promoting Sport Practice for Disabled People

Many studies have looked into the links existing between the organization of the Olympic and Paralympic
<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

Games and how much a given population engages in sports (Carmichael, Grix, & Marqués, 2013; Giulianotti, Armstrong, Hales, & Hobbs, 2014). Investment in the sectors of physical education and sports for all became a leitmotiv for the hosting towns (Pappous & Jeyacheya, 2011). Nevertheless, the evidence of a correlation between the organization of a mega-event and an increase in grassroots sport is still inconclusive. The single act of hosting such an event does not mechanically increase participation (Weed et al., 2012). The impact of the Paralympic Games on grassroots sport participation is even more questionable than the impact of the Olympics (Misener, Darcy, Legg, & Gilbert, 2013; Smith & Fleming, 2011; Solves et al., 2018).

Although Coward and Legg (2011) claimed that the 2010 Vancouver Paralympic Games increased the level of sport-for-all participation by disabled people, the authors did not provide any objective indicator allowing to verify this assertion. Following the London 2012 Games, the Head of the British Paralympic Association came to the same conclusion using data concerning Paralympic competition. In both cases, the authors did not have any information at their disposition concerning the evolution of grassroots sport participation for disabled people. Any progression was most often explained by an increase in financial support for Paralympic sport (Darcy & Appleby, 2011). For the 2008 Beijing Games, this increase was mainly beneficial for high performance sport—rather than mass sport—and for the urban and richer zones of the country (Sun, Yan, Mao, Chao, & Jing, 2011).

The organizing committee of the 2012 London Games had clearly indicated its ambition to increase sport participation of disabled people and its wish to change the sporting representations of the British population (Mahtani, Protheroe, & Slight, 2013; Weed et al., 2012). However, at the time of the survey, it was still difficult to ascertain whether this goal had been reached. On the one hand, a slight increase could be noted since 2015 (Sport England, 2017). On the other hand, 89% of the sports clubs questioned by the Sport and Recreation Alliance (2013) did not report any evolution in the number of disabled people enrolled and 86% had not registered any increase in applications to join; in addition, 61% of clubs specialized in sports for disabled people declared no visible evolution in their number of license holders since the Games took place. However, an enquiry led by the English Federation of Disability Sport (2013) showed that 79% of disabled people were interested in taking up sports practice.

In fact, after a temporary increase following the 2012 Olympics, the sporting participation of disabled people began to decline within the UK. Brown and Pappous (2018) attributed this decay to several associated factors. Firstly, they pointed out the limits of the near-exclusive reference to the 'demonstration effects' theory. The focus that the organizers of the Games had on this theory led them to minimise the role of social and structural obstacles in limiting the access of disabled people

to sporting activities. Indeed, for a number of these latter, identifying with Paralympic athletes was a difficult process because of the perceived disparity between the performances exhibited and the practice of mass sports. Although a certain momentum was generated by the Paralympic Games, it was difficult to focus and maintain because of the lack of information concerning the sporting offer available for disabled people. Finally, Pappous and Brown (2018) also noted that the increase in media coverage of disability sports was mainly true during the time of the Paralympic Games, but it drastically diminished once these were over.

In the end, faced with their inability to provide empirical proof, the studies concerning the levering effect of the Paralympic Games on the sporting participation of disabled people highlighted the limits of the strategies employed in order to create an inclusive legacy. They also evidenced the importance of coordinating the numerous mechanisms that could produce significant and durable evolutions in the access to mass sports for disabled people.

## 4. Conclusion

The institutionalization of Paralympic sport is a recent event. The sportivisation movement initiated in the 1960s developed to the accompaniment of bitter debates concerning the integration of every type of disability. Structuring the movement through one single organization was finally only possible at the end of the 1980s, at a time when the question of a legacy was emerging within the Olympic movement, as a managerial goal. In view of this history, Paralympic sport can be likened to a complex assemblage. In addition, the specific demands made by the different groups formed by disabled people, as well as the tensions these generated, reveal how much the legacy of the Paralympic Games cannot be grasped using a generic vision of 'disability.'

Applying this socio-historical perspective finally led us to review the concept of intangible legacy of the Olympics from a new angle, focusing on inclusion. Indeed, this new reading shed light on a series of issues which can also be glimpsed within the preoccupations concerning the tangible dimensions of a legacy with an inclusive vocation, notably those linked to making accessible sporting, touristic, and transport infrastructures. Although the ideal of universal accessibility on which the inclusive model is founded is faced here with the multiplicity of disabilities and incapacities (motor, sensory, intellectual), the ambition to ensure an intangible legacy exposes it to the complexity of the sociocultural production of disability. Indeed, the impairments associated to the various disabilities can produce, or not, situations of handicap depending on the tangible and intangible norms inscribed within the sociocultural environments they are associated with (Fougeyrollas et al., 1998).

This is the main observation that emerges from the research which has, up until now, studied the three in-
<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>

tangible indicators of the inclusive legacy of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Richard, Marcellini, Pappous, Joncheray, & Ferez, 2019). From the point of view of the leverage effect upon grassroots sport participation and the facilitation for high-level sports careers, the literature shows just how much the barriers to sporting participation can vary depending on the type of disability involved. Regarding the field of media coverage, several studies highlight the extent to which Paralympic performance is not represented in the same way depending on the disability of the athletes. In other words, intellectual disability, sensory impairments or tetraplegia—to cite only these examples—do not generate the same difficulties in accessing sports practice, whether for leisure or for a high-level sporting career. Beyond ‘disability’ as a simple category of public action and management, the existence of distinct situations and issues depending on the disabilities involved must be taken into consideration.

In this way, although Paralympic performances and their coverage by the media can contribute to long lasting transformations within our societies, evolving towards more inclusive organization methods, it is most probably by taking action and in showing these actions that the various situations of disability can be reduced or even negated. The aim should thus be to construct visibility for the performances and actions of disabled people within inclusive environments, that is to say situations which do not hold obstacles to their social participation (Fougeyrollas, 2010). This visibility of performances could participate in downplaying disability and ability limitations to the benefit of a facilitation and promotion of each and all’s social participation.

## Conflict of Interests

The authors declare no conflict of interests.

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## About the Authors

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**Sylvain Ferez** is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Sports Science and Physical Education of the University of Montpellier (France) and Director of the Health, Education, Situations of Disability laboratory. His research work develops a socio-historical reading of the issues related to access to physical and sports activities for people with disabilities and/or living with a chronic disease.

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**Sébastien Ruffié** is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the West Indies in Guadeloupe (France). His work focuses on the effects of physical and sports activities for people with disabilities. He is the author, with Sylvain Ferez, of a book entitled *Body, Sport, Disabilities: The Institutionalisation of the Handisport Movement (1954–2008)* in 2013, published by Téraèdre, and of several articles on the subject.

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**Hélène Joncheray** is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Paris. Since 2017, she has been on secondment as a researcher at the French Institute of Sport (INSEP). She is interested in the role of social factors in sport performance. She is responsible of one of the three themes of the Sport, Expertise and Performance laboratory, ‘Life-Balance of Elite Athletes and Their Staff.’ She is one of the Vice-Presidents of the International Sociology of Sport Association (ISSA).

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**Anne Marcellini** is a Sport Sociologist specialized in adapted physical activities and health. She is Professor at the Faculty of Social and Politic Sciences at Lausanne University (Switzerland). Her research focuses on the social participation of people with disabilities in connection with issues linking the body uses, identity, stigma and social integration process. She is a specialist in qualitative and visual sociology.
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**Sakis Pappous** is the Founding Director of the Sports Legacies and Society research group at the University of Kent (UK) and his main research interest is on the social legacies of sport mega events and sport participation. Pappous enjoys teaching in different languages and conducting interdisciplinary research. He has been involved either as a researcher or as a consultant in different editions of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (2004 Athens, 2012 London, 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo).

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**Rémi Richard** is an Associate Professor at the University of Montpellier, sociologist at the Health, Education, Situations of Disability laboratory. His research focuses on disability, gender and technology issues in the field of sport.