Integration Battle Heats Up At CommonWealth Games

By Louis Daignault

Canada’s battle to integrate disabled sports into major international sporting events gained ground at the recent Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand where wheelchair races were added to the schedule for the first time. Although the event did not have full medal status – the winners were awarded bouquets of flowers – officials working for integration hope that Auckland is the first step to full participation at the 194 games in Victoria, British Columbia.

“I have a mixture of feelings about our meetings with the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF),” says Dr. Robert Steadward of Edmonton, who headed the integration lobbying in Auckland. “It was a political circus. But I’m confident we’ve made progress toward our goals.”

Steadward adds that while the demonstration events at the Commonwealth Games were a milestone in the battle for integration, a strong conservative sentiment still pervades the CGF’s membership and the issue is not high on everyone’s agenda.

“The Commonwealth has always said it wants to play a lead role in social issues,” says Steadward, who is president of the International paralympic Committee. “What better way than by becoming the first major sports competition to integrate athletes with disabilities?”

Anne Merklinger, executive director of the Canadian Federation of Sports for the Disabled (CFSOD) was also in Auckland.

“I think there’s still a lack of awareness about disabled sports,” she says. “It’s not outright discrimination. It’s just that disabled athletes have not been as exposed in some countries as they have in North America and Europe.”

An even tougher battle is shaping up on the Olympic front. Disabled sport made its Olympic debut at the 1984 Winter Games in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, featuring disabled alpine skiing as a demonstration sport at the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary. At the Los Angeles Summer Games in 1984, 90,000 fans were on hand at the Los Angeles Coliseum for the men’s 1500m wheelchair race which was won by Paul Van Winkel of Belgium. Andre vigerof Sherbrooke, Quebec, was third.

This Olympic exposure increased hopes of speedy official integration, perhaps as early as 1992. But Richard Pound of Montreal, a vice-president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), says bluntly that there is no hope of disabled, or any other sport for that matter, gaining official Olympic status in the foreseeable future.

“The Olympics are already too big,” explains Pound. “We’re trying to find ways to cut them down. It’s too bad, but that’s the way it is.” Pound says that even meeting the compulsory 25-country international federation membership requirement will not sway the IOC. Even worse, he reports that after the 1992 Barcelona Games and the Lillehammer Games in 1994, demonstration sports will be removed from the Olympic Games’ program.

Steadward remains optimistic. “Opposition to integration is due to conservative sentiment rather than a lack of education,” he says. “We’ve found great support worldwide, particularly in Australia, the United States, Great Britain and even the Soviet Union. We’re going to concentrate a large part of our lobbying efforts at the international level.”

Steadward stresses that he and his colleagues are not trying to be a new sport. “All we want to be is another event in a sport already in place. It’s no different from what women’s sports have wanted over the last few years.

“The goal is to have one official event by 1996. If Toronto gets the Games, it will be an advantage because of the large Canadian effort involved in integration.”

Steadward also plans to meet with organizers in Berlin who are working on a German bid for the 2000 or 2004 Olympics. “They’re very keen to get disabled sports involved,” he says.

In the meantime, Steadward remains confident that Canada can lead the way in the battle to integrate the disabled in major sporting events.

“We have to put together a strong lobby group with people like Jean Charest, the former federal sports minister, Canada’s Man in Motion, Rick Hansen, and many others who are influential on the international sports scene.”

Whatever its future within the Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Games, integration is making inroads on a sport-by-sport basis. The International Racquetball Federation, for example, is the first international sporting group to accept integration at a world championship. At the 1990 World Racquetball Championship coming up in September in Caracas, Venezuela, wheelchair racquetballers will complete alongside their able-bodied counterparts in a historic moment in sport.

The Canadian Racquetball Association, a leader in integration, added wheelchair racquetball to its national championships back in 1985.

Canadian racquetball champion Heather Stupp has remarked about the disabled playing at the Canadian championships: “It’s great to have them. Actually it’s not even a big deal anymore. They’re part of the gang.”

As the barriers fall and the myths are dispelled, disabled people are becoming more and more an integral part of society. Canadian disabled sports officials are dedicated to making their Olympic and Commonwealth counterparts follow suit before the end of this century.

Rick Hansen Fights for Integration

by Sheila Robertson

Rick Hansen, Canada’s globe-girding wheelchair athlete, has taken up a new challenge. He’s determined to achieve the integration of disabled sport with able-bodied events worldwide and he’s calling for the federal government to establish a secretariat to pave the way.

Hansen, who directs the University of British Columbia’s Disability Centre, believes it is up to Canada to take the lead.

“There’s no better place than Canada,” he says. “We are one of the best organized in the world when it comes to sport for people with disabilities. That’s why the Canadian Wheelchair Sports Association (CWSA) is setting aside funding to get the secretariat going.”

Hansen cites several reasons why he believes the timing is ripe for such a move.

“First of all,” he says “we’ve got a Canadian, Dr. Robert Steadward of Edmonton, as president of the International Paralympic Committee. That’s the body that dealswith the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Canada is also hosting several major events where we can demonstrate to the IOC and the international sports federations how disabled sports can be integrated.”

Hansen is referring to the Atlantic Coast Games scheduled for Halifax in the summer of 1991 and the 1994 Commonwealth Games to be hosted by Victoria. He is confident the Victoria Games will feature full medal events for athletes with disabilities after the boast integration got at the recent Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand. The Games featured two wheelchair races, both won by Canadians and the London-based Commonwealth Games Federation voted to set up a committee to study integration. The Federation will no doubt note that the Canadian government has promised to pick up any extra costs if disabled sport is part of the program in Victoria.

“We’re aiming for a domino effect at these Games that will inexorably lead to the inclusion of disabled events in the Olympics,” Hansen explains.

He leaves no doubt as to why he believes it is vital to have disabled events in the Olympics.

“Sport is one of the last areas in society where we still segregate people with disabilities,” he says. “In business, the arts and politics, we don’t have special categories for disabled people. Special categories in sport perpetuate the stigma and the stereotype that prevent us from being recognized as full partners in society. Inclusion in the Olympics will signal to billions that we are full partners in sport.”

Hansen insists that participation in the Olympics is only a question of time. “I think sport will eventually embrace people with disabilities the same way it eventually embraced women and the same way it is now embracing disadvantaged athletes from Third World countries,” he says.

Hansen opposes the Paralympics concept, which combines all events involving athletes with disabilities into one set of games, thereby segregating them from all other athletes. “It’s a rehabilitative approach and it perpetuates a negative image about athletes with disabilities being different,” he says. “It also perpetuates misunderstandings and fears that exist about people with disabilities. The Paralympics should continue, but as a festival, not as a high level competitive event.”

“On the other hand,” he continues, “integration with able-bodied sports sends out the positive message that people with disabilities are not to be feared or segregated and demonstrates that they can be included in he mainstream of life.”

“We should be working towards helping specific sports grow,” he says, mentioning wheelchair racquetball, wheelchair basketball, blind goalball and amputee skiing. “That approach will involve more people. Equally important, it is sport for sport’s sake.”

Hansen, an active member of the CWSA as a wheelchair basketball player, notes that attitudes are the biggest barrier to integration.

“Getting those in charge of sport to see us as athletes first and disabled second is our biggest challenge,” he says. The root of the problem lines in the fact that wheelchair sport started as a form of rehabilitation and many still see it that way. They often view us with pity. But that is no longer valid. Training techniques, coaching and professional administration have all lifted our top athletes into the realm of the competitive elite.”

Some opponents of integration insist that people with disabilities represent too small a percentage of the world’s population for inclusion in major Games.

Hansen has an answer to that. “Over 13.5 per cent of Canada’s population,” he says, “or about three million people, are considered disabled.” He also wonders what percentage of the world’s population are decathletes or modern pentathletes or ski jumpers. At the same time he cautions against getting caught up in a numbers game.

“Daley Thompson (the Olympic decathlon champion) is every bit as accomplished as the former Brazilian soccer idol, Pele,” says Hansen, pointing out that while millions play soccer, a much smaller number pursue the pleasures of decathlon.

Some opponents insist that there are too mnay categories of disabled events. Hansen doesn’t buy that argument either.

“The model is the way women’s events have been integrated,” he says. “Women often have events which are similar to men’s but are separate because their physical characteristics are significantly different for that sport. For example, in track and field there’s a men’s 1500m race and a women’s 1500m race. It’s simply a matter of adding a wheelchair 1500m race.”

Hansen says that in sports where the physical differences aren’t significant – equestrian sport is a good example – men and women compete equally. And he mentions sports such as archery where athletes with disabilities compete on an equal basis with the able-bodied. Then there are women’s sports such as synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics which have no parrallel on the men’s side.

“These are Olympics sports,” he says. “Surely it is equally legitimate to have disabled events which have no parallel.”

Hansen says that attitudes within the disabled community must also change. “We are still caught up in the medical-rehabilitative model,” he says. “That element should always be there at the entry and recreational levels of sport. But as our athletes emerge from those levels, we need to develop an entirely different approach, one based on seeking integration using the traditional sports criteria of world class standards, well-developed training procedures, a sufficient number of athletes and spectator appeal.”

Hansen insists it is time to stop singling out athletes with disabilities for special recognition. “An athlete with a disability should be singled out strictly for performance against a recognized standard,” he says, “not for his or her spirit or courage or, for that matter, colour, or disability. To do that diffuses the issue. It makes us appear separate. We are not. We are athletes.”

-- Sheila Robertson is an Ottawa-based correspondent providing regular coverage of CWSA events and activities.