lThe ambition to change the way we view disability through the Paralympic Games would require that the images shown, sources of profit for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the media and sponsors, do not obscure a significant part of the affected population.
However, for example, athletes with Down syndrome and those recognised as autistic without intellectual disabilities are not admitted to these Games. However, the French Federation of Adapted Sports (FFSA) welcomes them and they participate in the Global Games, a real world championship organised by the international federation dedicated to them, in different categories and which brings together competitors with intellectual disabilities.
Athletes who fall into one of three disability categories: motor, visual and intellectual, will be able to compete at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. The latter, numerous among the population, are barely visible here: around 150 of the 4,400 participants in these Games, six among the 237 French, in only three sports and 19 events out of 549.
The traps of Spanish basketball players
This low presence is often linked to the cheating of Spanish basketball players, winners of the Sydney Games in 2000, but most of whom did not have intellectual disabilities. As a result, “mentally disabled” athletes were subject to collective punishment, as they would now be completely excluded from future Games.
Once they were reinstated for the 2012 London Games, following the definition of the tests that certify the existence of an intellectual disability that affects the practice of sport, they only had a limited number of places. In fact, the IOC sets a specific number of participants in the Olympic and Paralympic Games, so that in 2024 we could not exceed 4,400 athletes for the latter. So if we want to add a sport, an event or a category of athletes, we must eliminate it in order to respect the defined quota.
This is the quota argument used to reject the creation of a specific category for athletes with Down syndrome, and also the one used by director Artus for his film, Something extra. This is what he said on France Inter on May 11, regarding producers reluctant to get involved.
One of them reportedly stated that“Don’t you dare talk about it too much” and that the“We have already submitted all our budgets”. The same request was refused by luxury brands, which initially refused to lend evening gowns to the film crew for the Cannes stairs. “We hear stories about quotas”said Artus, referring to the justification provided: “We have already lent out all our costumes.” He adds that he does not believe in this explanation.
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