Paralympic Games: At the Paralympics, inclusion is golden

If everything goes normally in Paris, the Dutch will be at the top again in wheelchair basketball. In 2021 in Tokyo they won gold without any major problems. In the games that run until Sunday, they drove through the preliminary round in slow motion and clearly beat Germany by 20 points. They also won easily in the quarterfinals against Spain with 61:43. The Dutch are considered the benchmark in wheelchair basketball.

But not just there. In general, it often happens that the Netherlands wins gold at the Paralympic Games. In the historical medal table, Holland is in eighth place with a population of barely 18 million people. Every other country in the top 10 – the top three places are occupied by the USA, Great Britain and China – is significantly larger.

Anyone who deals with social systems in addition to para sports is not surprised by this. Ian Brittain, Paralympics expert and professor at Coventry University, says about the Netherlands: “This is a country where there is a stronger belief in values ​​such as inclusion and equal opportunities.” All people, regardless of physical impairments, are given more opportunities than anywhere else to reach the highest level.

With regard to para sports, this means: “There are also sports facilities for people with disabilities.” Sports halls and pitches would be reserved for para athletes and their teams so that they can train regularly. “And there are staff who understand how to tailor the training specifically.” In many other countries – including Germany – this is not the standard.

Brittain addresses a topic that goes far beyond competitive sports: the question of how committed a society is to those people who rely on support because of a disability. And when you look at historical medal wins at the Paralympic Games, you notice that in general, wealthy countries where people can more easily afford the expensive equipment for parasports win most often. But within the rich world, a special group of states shines again.

When it comes to gold medals per capita, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and the Faroe Islands are at the top, followed by the Netherlands and Denmark. Also in the top 10 are New Zealand, Australia, Finland and Ireland. Germany follows in 19th place, the USA in 36th place, and China only in 75th place.

Many of the countries that win the most Paralympic medals per capita are not simply wealthy, but also have a welfare state structure that provides for a particularly large number of people at a high level. In political science they are often referred to as “social democratic welfare states”. Roughly summarized: Everyone pays into one pot, everyone is part of the system and, if necessary, receives the same welfare state benefits regardless of the amount previously paid in.

In the Netherlands, approximately every home district pays for a wheelchair or prosthesis for every child with a disability. There is also support for sports equipment. In Germany – which is considered to be a “conservative welfare state” where the social benefits to be received by individuals often depend on how much they have previously paid into the system – this is less the case. A petition is currently calling for German health insurance companies to also pay for sports prostheses for popular sports.

There has long been criticism in German para sports that the hurdles to doing sport are simply too high for many children. The question remains as to how much influence the International Paralympic Committee can have on the national treatment of people with disabilities. The Chilean politician Michelle Bachelet, UN human rights representative until 2022, hopes above all that the Paralympic venues will act as beacons.

»If you look at the Paralympic Games alone, we have direct contact with cities like Beijing, Paris, Milan and Los Angeles in these years. The mayors of these cities are behind the event,” said Bachelet in a recent interview. We have to use this: “To talk about human rights, to explore ways in which we can improve the lives of people with disabilities.”

In Paris, too, the focus has recently been primarily on the issue of infrastructure, in terms of accessibility for public transport, public buildings or sports facilities – hardly on social security systems. This is not the only reason why Ian Brittain is less optimistic than Michelle Bachelet: »In many countries, all possible promises are already forgotten immediately after the closing ceremony of the Games. This applies to London, where the 2012 Paralympics took place.«

There were also general economic problems there, from the consequences of a financial crisis to the exit from the European Union to the corona pandemic. “But in addition, we were recently governed by a conservative party that seemed to see people with disabilities as a burden on society.” Among other things, more than 2,000 sports facilities were closed because municipalities had to save money. “Parasport is particularly suffering from this.”

At first glance, this is hardly reflected in the medal ranking – in an absolute comparison of countries, without taking population size into account, Great Britain is again way ahead in Paris. “But that’s because there’s still a lot of money available for elite para-sports.” This masks the problem that the welfare state has become weaker in recent years. Brittain sums up: “It shows once again that political philosophy plays an important role.”

The main question is: How much do people with disabilities understand themselves as part of society? The answer to this is a good indicator of how successful a country is at the Paralympics. In the historical ranking of gold medal wins per capita, Great Britain, where the welfare state is rather frugal, is only in 15th place.