Why you—yes, YOU—should watch the Paralympics

The Paralympics are for sports fans.

The Paralympics are underway—the opening ceremony was yesterday, and I’m currently watching wheelchair basketball while writing this.

I think we’ve done Paralympians a disservice through the way we discuss the Paralympics. Notably: They’re sports. Paralympians didn’t get their Paralympic spots through charity or through having the best story. They get to the Paralympics by training, competing, and qualifying.

In April, I got the chance to talk to a bunch of Paralympic athletes at the USOPC Media Days in New York. What struck me is that while Olympic athletes can choose to either talk about sports or advocate for particular causes, Paralympians don’t have the luxury of opting out of the other stuff. They have to play a sport, and then convince people that their sport is a sport and not some sort of charity event, and then they have to explain why it’s important for their sport to exist. They have to explain their disability, and they have to be role models for others with disabilities, and representatives of the disabled community in the eyes of able-bodied people. It seems exhausting.

So do the Paralympians a favor. Watch their sports. If you’re not entertained, turn it off. You’re not here to feel bad. This is not an act of service. This is sitting on your couch and watching TV. Enjoy it!

Adaptive sports are cool as hell to watch

One word: GOALBALL:

Goalball is a sport for visually impaired athletes who chuck a big ball filled with jinglebells into a net. They wear blindfolds to make sure athletes who can see a little bit don’t have an advantage over those with total visual impairment. Using the sounds of the bell-filled ball bouncing, they locate it and defend their net. You can’t tell me it isn’t thrilling and stunning to watch a blindfolded person sprint to make a diving save. You can’t!

I tend to be most compelled by Paralympic team events. Wheelchair hoops is a classic, and Team USA is going for a 3-peat on the men’s side. (I don’t know how those guys hit three-pointers while sitting in chair.) But I’m also going to throw out a rec for Paralympic table tennis:

And many of the events you think you understand are different at the Paralympics. Here’s the T11 100-meter dash, where blind athletes team up with guides to reach the finish line:

Look around and you’ll find your own sports that are fascinating. If you’re able-bodied, some of that fascination come from gawking at feats performed by people with very different bodies and lives from yours. But…. like… that’s kinda how all sports work??? Basketball players are tall, gymnasts are short, high jumpers have long legs, weightlifters have short arms, Paralympians might not have arms or legs at all, same diff.

It’s got all the same things we love about the Olympics… but more

I mean this in the simplest sense—you can once again spend your afternoons getting deeply invested for Team USA to win gold in various sports. There are actually more opportunities to do that: There were 329 gold medals awarded in the Paris Olympics, and there will be 549 in the Paris Paralympics, due to the wide range of classifications.

But I also mean it in a more philosophical sense. I find that Olympics People—and, I imagine, many of the people who signed up for this Substack during the Olympics—are the type of people who read Wikipedia pages for leisure. The process of falling in love with an Olympic sport we’ve never seen before isn’t just about the competition, but also about learning the rules, figuring out the strategies, identifying the playing styles.

The Paralympics are like a supersized version of that. You’ve definitely never watched most of these sports, because few of them are ever on TV., Even the sports modeled after Olympic sports are unfamiliar, because they have unique specifications which enable people with certain disabilities to play. As a result, the rules and strategies not only tell us about a sport, but about the capabilities of the athletes.

It’s like you’re learning about two things: The way to play a game, and the way some people live their lives.

Don’t watch for “them.” Watch for you

Back in April, I asked Paralympic athletes why they think people should watch them play. The answer that stuck with me the most was from para-canoeist Blake Haxton. (He’s in a Delta commercial you probably saw a bunch during the Olympics.)

Haxton lost his legs in high school after a sudden, random bout of necrotizing fasciitis that led to sepsis and a double-amputation. So while many Paralympians have lived their whole lives with disabilities, Blake went through about half his life as a person who didn’t think much at all about the needs of people who need a wheelchair to get around, and then he was one.

I wasn’t recording, so I don’t want to directly quote Haxton, but he said something like this:

At some point in your life, there is a pretty solid chance that you or somebody you love will become disabled. That’s not fun to think about, but if it happens, there will be certain things you wish you knew, and you can learn those things by watching the Paralympics.

When Blake said that, I imagine he meant that some of the things you can learn from the Paralympics are practical—like how somebody who needs a wheelchair can get the exercise they need to stay healthy, or how visually impaired people get around. Some of them are bigger—like the knowledge that life goes on for people with disabilities, and that a disability can’t prevent someone from having a happy, fulfilling life.

For those of us lucky to have functioning arms and legs and eyes and ears, it’s easy to think of disabilities as something that happens to them. But disabilities don’t happen to them. They happen to us, and our spouses, and our children, and our friends. You might think of you and your loved ones as able-bodied, but nobody is able-bodied forever. Cross your fingers, knock on wood, do whatever you need to do, but it’s true. Your body will not continue working the way it does now forever. It’s the only guarantee in life.

You don’t have to watch the Paralympics for them. Trust me. I’ve talked to Paralympians, and they don’t want your pity-watch. Watch for you! Watch because the sports are interesting. Watch because cheering for Team USA is fun. Watch because you need to scratch the Olympics itch again.

And like it or not, we all have a vested interest in understanding how people with disabilities live their lives, and the options available to people with disabilities. And of all the ways to gain that understanding, watching basketball or goalball is a pretty solid one.