BULLETIN 61, May 2011
Journal of Sport Science and Physical Education

Feature:

Essays on the Paralympic Movement: Doubts and Certainties

Bulletin 61

Publisher's Statement

Publisher`s Statement

Foreword

Editorial

Katrin Koenen

Editorial - french

Katrin Koenen

President`s Message

Margaret Talbot

Message de la Présidente - french

Margaret Talbot

Welcome New Members

Feature

Essays on the Paralympic Movement: Doubts and Certainties (1)

Keith Gilbert, Otto J.Schantz & David Legg

Exclusive Arenas: The Paralympics and Olympics

Otto J. Schantz & Keith Gilbert

Youth, Disability and the Use of Sport in African Post-conflict Zones

Ian Brittain

Inclusive Research: Dis/ability, Difference and the Paralympic Games

Jill M. Le Clair

Positioning the Paralympic Games in Liquid Modernity

Natalie Campbell

The 2012 Cultural Olympiad and Paralympic Games: An Opportunity to Challenge the Archetypal, Stereotypes of Disability for Good?

Athanasios (Sakis) Pappous & Julia Jeyacheya

What is the Ideal Paralympic Sport System? Future Research Directions

David Legg, Veerle De Bosscher, Simon Shibli & Maartaen van Bottenburg

Handcycling: From Racing, to Recreation and Clinical Rehabilitation

Paul M. Smith & Thomas Abel

The International Paralympic Committee Classification Code: Solid Foundation or Built on Sand?

Colin Higgs

Coaching athletes with disabilities: Challenges and Recommendations

Nagoor Meera Abdullah, Kwame Ampofo-Boateng, Rozita Abdul Latif & Hisyam Che Mat

Sport and Physical Education after the Cheetah Legs

Gregor Wolbring

A Case for the Official Merger of the Winter Paralympic Games into the 2018 Winter Olympic Games

Ted Fay

A Brief Review of the Literature on Media Coverage of the Paralympic Games

Brenda-Kammel Atuona

The Centre for Inclusive Sport Studies in Madrid (Spain): An Example of Research Application in Adapted and Inclusive Sports

Javier Pérez, Javier Alonso & Javier Sampedro

Current Issues

Introduction to the Optimal Coordination Order (OCO) System - The Innovative Way for Developing Individual Coordination Ability for Sport Arts

Mark Wertheim

`My Everest`: The Psychology of High Intent!

Rodney D. Cooper

ICSSPE News

Katrin Koenen

Publisher's Statement

Publisher`s Statement

The Journal of the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education (ICSSPE) is published twice a year. Its goal is to provide a forum for ICSSPE members and other contributors to share news and experiences, raise issues for discussion, develop international and external links and promote events. The featured articles and other contents are monitored by the ICSSPE Executive Office and the Editorial Board, with the aim of allowing for free and balanced dissemination of information consistent with ICSSPE’s aims and objectives. The views expressed within this publication are not necessarily those held by ICSSPE unless otherwise stated.

The Journal is published by
International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education (ICSSPE)
Hanns-Braun-Straße
Friesenhaus II
14053 Berlin
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Tel.: +49 30 3641 8850
Fax: +49 30 805 6386
icsspe@icsspe.org
http://www.icsspe.org

Editor: Katrin Koenen
Text-Editor: Tamara Needham
Design: Astrid Lange

ICSSPE Editorial Board:
Prof. Kari Keskinen
Prof. Richard Bailey
Prof. Pedro Ferreira Guedes de Carvalho
Prof. Keith Gilbert
Prof. Anneliese Goslin
Prof. Rosa Lòpez de D`Amico
Prof. Abel L. Toriola
Prof. Alexander Woll
Prof. Walter Mengisen
Detlef Dumon
Katrin Koenen

© Copyright 2011, ICSSPE. For information about this work, please contact ICSSPE. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute copies of this work for nonprofit educational purposes, provided that copies are distributed at or below cost, and that the author, source, and copyright notice are included on each copy.

The Executive Office is supported by the Senatsverwaltung für Inneres und Sport, Berlin and by the Bundesministerium des Innern, Germany, based on a decision of the Deutsche Bundestag.

Foreword

Editorial
Katrin Koenen
Welcome to issue number 61 of the ICSSPE Journal, where we are delighted to present an exciting and comprehensive feature called `Essays on the Paralympic Movement: Certainties and Doubts´. It has been developed and edited by Prof. Keith Gilbert, University of East London, U.K.; Prof. Otto J. Schantz, University of Koblenz, Germany; and Dr. David Legg, Mount Royal University, Canada, and I would like to thank them for the fruitful cooperation and for a feature that offers an invaluable insight into different areas and perspectives on sport for persons with a disability. The feature includes articles such as “Youth, Disability and the Use of Sport in African Post-conflict Zones” by Ian Brittain; “Inclusive Research: Dis/ability, Difference and the Paralympic Games” by Jill M. Le Clair; “Positioning the Paralympic Games in Liquid Modernity” by Natalie Campbell; “The International Paralympic Committee Classification Code: Solid Foundation or Built on Sand?” by Colin Higgs; and many more. The feature also includes articles of the critical sciences and have in some cases adopted a particular position, which we hope will attract response and riposte from among our readers and also Paralympic athletes themselves.
The Current Issues section contains articles on the innovative way for developing individual coordination ability for sport arts and on the `Psychology of High Intent`. There is also, of course, the ICSSPE News, where you can find detailed information on ICSSPE´s current activities. In cooperation with our Boards and members, the ICSSPE office staff is very busily working on upcoming events: “Sport as a Mediator between Cultures”, which will be held from 15-17 September, 2011, at Wingate Institute, Israel and “Communities and Crisis – Inclusive Development through Sport”, a hands-on seminar running from 21-26 November, 2011, in Rheinsberg, Germany. We also continue working on our current publications, which include the new Perspectives on Lifelong Engagement in Sport and Physical Activity: Participation and Performance across the Lifespan, edited by Nicholas Holt, University of Alberta, Canada and Margaret Talbolt, ICSSPE President, which will be published in July in cooperation with Routledge, and the 6th edition of the Directory of Sport Science, which will be an amplified and modernised version, published in 2012 by Human Kinetics. These projects keep the office bustling!
Please remember, while you are reading about the latest ICSSPE events, to also keep us up to date with your events by using our online conference announcement form and sending information for the ICSSPE News, which is distributed every month. We are also happy to receive book-reviews and articles on current research and projects for our Current Issue section of the Journal.
I hope you enjoy this edition and I look forward to working with you all on future issues.
Katrin Koenen
Publication and Scientific Affairs Manager
Editorial - french
Katrin Koenen
Nous vous souhaitons la bienvenue pour la lecture de ce 61e numéro du Journal du CIEPSS ! Dans cette édition, nous sommes ravis de vous présenter un dossier captivant et très complet, appelé « Essays on the Paralympic Movement : Certainties and Doubts ». Professeur Keith Gilbert, de l`Ecole de la Santé et des sciences biologiques (School of Heath and Biosciences) de l`Université d`East London, Professeur Otto J. Schantz, de l`Université de Koblenz, Allemagne and Dr. David Legg, Mount Royal Université, Canada l`avez conçu et édité. Je voudrais les remercier tout particulièrement pour cette collaboration fructueuse et pour ce dossier, car il offre un précieux aperçu du sport pour les personnes à handicap, dans des domaines et des perspectives très variées. Cette publication comprend des articles tels que “Youth, Disability and the Use of Sport in African Post-conflict Zones” par Ian Brittain, "Inclusive Research: Disability, Difference and the Paralympic Games” par Jill M. Le Clair; “The International Paralympic Committee Classification Code: Solid Foundation or Built on Sand?"par Natalie Campbell; "The International Paralympic Committee Classification Code: Solid Foundation or Built on Sand?"par Colin Higgs, et bien d`autres encore.
La rubrique “Current Issues” comporte des articles sur les innovation en matière de développement de la capacité de coordination individuelle dans le domaine des arts du sport et dans celui de la psychologie à haute intention (Psychology of High Intent). – Il y aussi, bien évidemment, la rubrique des « News » du CIEPSS, où vous pourrez trouver une information détaillée des activités courantes du CIEPSS. En collaboration avec notre comité et ses membres, le personnel administratif du CIEPSS est très affairé à la préparation des manifestations à venir : “Sport as a Mediator between Cultures”, qui aura lieu du 15 au 17 septembre 2011, au “Wingate Institute”, en Israel et “Communities and Crisis – Inclusive Development through Sport”, un séminaire pratique qui se déroulera du 21 au 26 novembre 2011, à Rheinsberg, en Allemagne. Nous continuons également de travailler à nos publications actuelles, qui comprennent de nouvelles perspectives : “Participation and Performance across the Lifespan”, édité par Nicholas Holt, de l`Université de l`Alberta, au Canada et Margaret Talbolt, présidente du CIEPSS, cet article sera publié en Juillet, en coopération avec Routledge, ainsi que la 6ème édition du Répertoire des sciences du sport, qui sera une version amplifiée et modernisée, publiée en 2012 par Human Kinetics. Comme vous l`imaginez, tous ses projets tiennent l`équipe administrative du CIEPSS en ébullition !
Et rappelez-vous en lisant la rubrique “latest events” du CIEPSS de nous tenir au courant de tous les événements qui vous concernent. Pour ce faire, nous vous prions d`utiliser le formulaire en ligne d`annonce de conférence et de l`envoyer pour la rubrique des “News” du CIEPSS, distribuée chaque mois. Nous nous réjouissons également de recevoir des livres et des articles critiques sur les recherches en cours et les projets pour notre section « Current Issue » du journal.
J`espère que vous apprécierez cette édition et je me réjouis de travailler avec vous sur des projets à venir.
Katrin Koenen
Responsable des publications et des affaires scientifiques

President`s Message
Margaret Talbot

This edition of the Bulletin signifies our close relationship with the International Paralympic Committee, which is not only an ICSSPE member, but a major partner. The edition also signals ICSSPE’s commitment to inclusive sport and physical education.
The year 2011 seems already to be labelled as a year of disasters, and our thoughts and prayers have been with our colleagues in New Zealand, Japan and China, as they meet the enormous challenges caused by natural disasters this year. Some people might say in such situations that sport, sport science and physical education are marginal issues; but again, we hear of instances where sport and physical activity have provided much-needed respite from stress and anxiety, especially for children and young people.
This was one of the motives behind ICSSPE’s seminars on the use of sport in post-disaster relief, which have been running in the years since the south-east Asian Tsunami; another titled “Communities and Crisis – Inclusive Development Through Sport” will take place 21-26 November 2011 (www.icsspe.org/index.php)
The power of sport to heal is also behind the international conference in Israel, 15-17 September 2011, for which ICSSPE is working with the Israeli Ministries of Culture and Sport, and Regional Cooperation; the German Federal Ministry of the Interior; Football for Peace; Wingate Institute and Zinman College of Physical Education in Israel, and the Federal Institute for Sport Science in Germany, to make the first steps of a committed process, through “Sport as a Mediator between Cultures”. (http://www.icsspe.org/index.php?m=16&n=32&o=171&s=173)
All of us who work in international sport know that people and the relationships between them matter – often, more than politics and politicians. Individuals working in sport, physical education and sport science clearly cannot, alone, prevent or stop conflict. But they can demonstrate the will to work together and learn to understand each other, through shared endeavour; and they can help the children and young people they teach, coach or mentor, that they share a common humanity. There are already welcome signs of cooperation and bridge-building in the Middle East, in the lead up to the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. We hope that this forthcoming seminar will help in the process of reconciliation and trust-building; and that more countries will be able to commit to future events with the same aim. The Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr Ban Ki-Moon, emphasised the need for sport to be mainstreamed into peace-building and peace-keeping, at the recent UN/IOC Forum on Sport for Development and Peace.
The burgeoning use of sport for development during the last decade is remarkable – sport for peace, sport for reconciliation, sport for inner city renewal and crime prevention, sport for nation- and community-building, sport for prevention or management of risk behaviours, sport for sustainability and economic development, sport for education ... The list grows! While significant funds, especially from governments and charities, have supported this work, the level of accountability is also growing, and there is increasing need and demand for good quality evidence of the impact of this work. It is unlikely that funding will continue, if aid agencies provide only film or photographs of children at play – despite their obvious enjoyment, and despite the clear respite they may get from difficult environments.The UN/ IOC Forum on Sport for Development and Peace in May, was followed by a meeting of the Working Group, which asked ICSSPE to provide a briefing paper on impact measurement. This is an excellent example of the value of science to support humanitarian action. Through science, we can help to sustain aid funding for those programmes that genuinely make a difference, either to individuals, or to systems, or both.
This was one of the topics covered during our recent meeting with the IOC President Jacques Rogge, who has genuine appreciation of the contribution of research and academic expertise to the development of performance in sport. At the same meeting, he agreed to provide a support statement for the ICSSPE Position Statement on Physical Education, a welcome indication of the deepening relationship between the IOC and ICSSPE. There are similar commitments from the International Paralympic Committee and several UN agencies. He also invited me to serve as a member of the Review Group for the Youth Olympic Games, whose membership includes Prof Dr Gudrun Doll-Tepper – a visible sign of his value for the contribution of science to this important review. We are discussing the potential for wider dissemination of the YOG educational materials in future, through national, regional and international organisations for sport pedagogy and physical education, to young people across the world.
The value of the wealth of expertise provided by ICSSPE members, and the richness of multi-disciplinary approaches which characterise ICSSPE, are demonstrated by the programme of keynote presentations and symposia that have been selected for ICSEMIS 2012 (International Convention of Science, Education and Medicine in Sport). It also illustrates the unique capacity of ICSSPE to bring together disciplines and fields of study to provide insights and understanding of the complex issues facing contemporary sport – especially when working with its partner organisations for ICSEMIS – the IOC, IPC, and the International Federation of Sport Medicine (FIMS). We look forward to welcoming you to Glasgow next year, for a feast of sport science and physical education.

Professor Margaret Talbot, PhD OBE FRSA
President

Message de la Présidente - french
Margaret Talbot
Cette édition du Bulletin marque notre lien étroit avec le Comité international paralympique, qui est non seulement un membre du CIEPSS, mais aussi un partenaire majeur. L`édition montre également l`engagement du CIEPSS en faveur des sports ouverts à tous et de l`éducation physique.
L`année 2011 semble déjà se démarquer par ses désastres. Aussi, nos pensées et nos prières vont-elles à nos collègues en Nouvelle-Zélande, au Japon et en Chine. En effet, ils ont, cette année, à relever d’énormes défis causés par des catastrophes naturelles. Face à de telles situations, certains pourraient dire que le sport et la science sportive sont des questions marginales. Toutefois, nous entendons souvent parler de cas où le sport et l’activité physique ont fourni un répit nécessaire et indispensable pour lutter contre le stress et l’anxiété, tout particulièrement lorsqu’il s’agit d’enfants ou de jeunes.
Ce thème était un des fondements des séminaires organisés par le CIEPSS sur l`utilisation du sport en matière de secours après une catastrophe. Ces sujets furent récurrents tout au long des années suivant le tsunami du sud-est asiatique. Un autre intitulé va prendre maintenant cette place du 21 au 26 novembre 2011, il s’agit de " Communities and Crisis – Inclusive Development Through Sport” (http: // www.icsspe.org/index.php ? m=16&n=32&o=157)
Le pouvoir du sport en matière de guérison est également à l`origine de la conférence internationale organisée en Israël, du 15 au17 Septembre 2011. C’est dans ce but, que le CIEPSS travaille en collaboration avec les ministères israéliens de la Culture et du Sport, ainsi qu’avec la coopération régionale, le Ministère fédéral allemand de l`Intérieur; le football pour la paix ; l’Institut Wingate et Zinman, le Collège de l`éducation physique en Israël, et l`Institut fédéral de la science du sport en Allemagne, afin de réaliser les premières étapes d`un processus engagé à travers “Sport as a Mediator between Cultures”. (http://www.icsspe.org/index.php?m=16&n=32&o=171&s=173 ).
Chacun d`entre nous, travaillant dans le domaine du sport international, sait que les gens et les relations qu’ils ont entre eux jouent un rôle prépondérant - souvent, plus que la politique et les politiciens. Il est évident que les individus qui travaillent dans le domaine du sport, de l`éducation physique et des sciences du sport ne peuvent pas, seuls, prévenir ou faire face aux conflits. Toutefois, ils peuvent manifester leur volonté à travailler ensemble et apprendre à se comprendre, par un effort partagé. De la même manière, ils peuvent aider les enfants et les jeunes auxquels ils enseignent, ou qu’ils entraînent ou soutiennent financièrement, en leur montrant qu`ils partagent une humanité commune. Il y a déjà des signes encourageants de coopération et de construction de liens qui se contruisent au Moyen-Orient, à l`approche des Jeux olympiques et paralympiques de 2012. Nous espérons que ce prochain séminaire aidera au processus de réconciliation et au renforcement de la confiance grandissante. Ainsi davantage de pays, animés par ce même but, seront en mesure de s`engager dans des manifestations à venir. Le Secrétaire général de l`Organisation des Nations Unies, M. Ban Ki-Moon, a souligné la nécessité pour le sport d’être intégré dans le processus de paix et de maintien de la paix, lors du récent Forum des Nations Unies et du CIO sur le sport en matière de développement et de paix.
L`utilisation en plein essor du sport au service du développement au cours de la dernière décennie est remarquable - le sport pour la paix, le sport pour la réconciliation, le sport pour le renouvellement de centre-ville et la prévention du crime, le sport pour la nation et le développement communautaire, le sport pour la prévention ou la gestion des comportements à risque, le sport pour la durabilité et le développement économique, le sport pour l`éducation ... La liste est longue! Des fonds importants, en particulier des gouvernements et des organismes de bienfaisance, soutiennent ce travail, toutefois, le niveau de responsabilité augmente. Il y a donc un besoin croissant de fonds, de même qu’une demande de preuves de qualité de l`impact de ce travail. Il est peu probable que le financement se poursuive, si les organismes d`aide ne fournissent que des films ou des photos d`enfants en train de jouer - en dépit de leur plaisir évident, et malgré le clair répit qu`ils obtiennent par ce biais, dans un environnement difficile. Le forum des Nations Unies et du CIO sur le sport pour le développement et la paix en Mai, a été suivi par une réunion du groupe de travail, qui a demandé au CIEPSS de fournir une note informative sur la mesure de cet impact. Ce qui représente un excellent exemple de la valeur de la science dans le domaine de soutien à l`action humanitaire. Grâce à la science, nous pouvons contribuer à maintenir le financement d’aides aux programmes qui font véritablement la différence par leur qualité, et qui s’adressent soit à des particuliers ou à des systèmes, voire même les deux.
Ce fut l`un des sujets abordés au cours de notre récente rencontre avec le président du CIO, Jacques Rogge, qui a une appréciation globale de la contribution de la recherche et de l`expertise académique pour le développement de la performance dans le sport. A cette même occasion, il a accepté d’apporter une promesse de soutien pour la Déclaration de position du CIEPSS sur la question de l`éducation physique, une indication bienvenue de l`approfondissement des relations entre le CIO et le CIEPSS. Il y a des engagements similaires du Comité international paralympique et de plusieurs agences des Nations Unies. Il m`a également invitée à siéger en tant que membre du Groupe d`examinateurs pour les Jeux Olympiques de la Jeunesse (JOJ), dont fait partie la Professeur Gudrun Doll-Tepper - un signe patent de sa valeur à la contribution de la science dans cet important examen. Nous discutons de la possibilité, à venir, d`une diffusion plus large des matériaux éducatifs du JOJ, par le biais d’organisations nationales, régionales et internationales en faveur de la pédagogie du sport et de l’éducation physique, aux jeunes du monde entier.
La qualité d’expertise fournie par les membres du CIEPSS, et la richesse des approches multidisciplinaires qui caractérisent le CIEPSS, sont mises en évidence par le programme des présentations principales et les colloques qui ont été sélectionnés pour la convention scientifique internationale d’Education physique et de médecine du sport 2012 (ISCEMIS). Ce qui illustre la capacité unique du CIEPSS à rassembler les disciplines et les domaines d`études afin de donner un aperçu significatif et de mieux comprendre les questions complexes soulevées par le sport contemporain - en particulier en travaillant avec ses organisations partenaires en vue de la prochaine ICSEMIS - le CIO, le CIP, et la Fédération internationale de médecine du sport (FIMS). Nous nous réjouissons beaucoup de vous accueillir à Glasgow l`année prochaine, pour une fête de la science du sport et de l’éducation physique.
Professeur Margaret Talbot, PhD OBE FRSA
Presidente

Welcome New Members
Since July 2010, ICSSPE has received the following new membership applications which will be ratified at the 72nd Executive Board Meeting:
D121-11
Bapuji College of Physical Education
India
26 July 2010
B121-1
World Rope Skipping Confederation
India
5 August 2010
B178-1
Fundación Red Deporte y Cooperación
Spain
5 August 2010
B156-3
International Tennis Federation
United Kingdom
11 August 2010
B121-2
World Leg Cricket Federation
India
4 October 2010
D121-12
National College India
Hatha Yoga and Fitness
India
9 November 2010
D175-1
University of Malta, Institute for Physical Education & Sport
Malta
25.1.2011
D151-9
Sport et Citoyennete/Sport and Citizenship
France
14 February 2011
C105-1
MIFALOT
Israel
28 April 2011
D164-6
Valahia University of Targoviste
Romania
17 May 2011
B104-12
World Pahuyuth Federation
Iran
25 May 2011

Feature

Essays on the Paralympic Movement: Doubts and Certainties (1)
Keith Gilbert, Otto J.Schantz & David Legg
Initiating the Doubts and Certainties
The title `Essays on the Paralympic Movement: Doubts and Certainties ` was specifically chosen in order for us to be able to review diverse and controversial aspects of the Paralympics, which are not normally researched and discussed in academic literature. It allowed us to review literature and write about the positive structures, positive convictions, positive results and obvious worries, misgivings and reservations that the academic world and society in general has regarding the past and future directions of the Paralympic Movement.
Along with the above, we have published the following articles in order to add to the field of Paralympic research, which has burgeoned over the past few years but which still needs much more reflection and investigation. With this thought in mind, one of our principal objectives is to try to persuade other academics to research at the London 2012, Sochi 2014 and Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.
We have also followed the pattern of Paralympic research development by producing the following edited essays simultaneously for at least four distinct groups of individuals in society. Firstly, for students and scholars in Paralympic Studies and Exercise and Sport Science degrees in the higher education sector across the world. Secondly for managers and coaches; thirdly we write for those athletes who are Paralympians and their support personnel and lastly these essays are for advocates of disability and sport across the world and societies at large.
When reflecting on the type of essay that we wanted for this special feature, we were torn between providing a structured title for the authors or just allowing the authors to publish their latest research and reflections. We chose the latter as we wanted to include both seasoned academics and younger academics who are working in the area. To be prescriptive would have lessened the impact of the essays as our ultimate goal was to give voice to academics researching in the Paralympic Movement and allow a freedom, which they can seldom aspire to or achieve in the academic process.
We truly hope you enjoy reading the essays on the Paralympic Games and learn something new regarding the constructive outcomes and problematics of the Movement and that they add to your overall knowledge of the area and arouse your ideas for further research on the Paralympics. Finally, as editors, we would like to thank the individual authors of the essays and also Katrin Koenen from the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education for her support and patience over the past few months during the compilation of the essays. We note that all are open to suggestions and comments on their research and can be reached through their e-mail addresses at the end of each reference list.
Keith Gilbert, Otto J. Schantz & David Legg
Note
(1) The heading `doubts and certainties` was inspired by the book by Homans, G. (1987). Certainties and Doubts, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, and in essence, best fits the main theme of the series of articles in this feature. However we changed the order of the title because after all, doubts should come first in the field of sciences.

Contact
Prof. Keith Gilbert
University of East London
School of Health and Biosciences
London, United Kingdom
Email: k.gilbert@uel.ac.uk

Exclusive Arenas: The Paralympics and Olympics
Otto J. Schantz & Keith Gilbert

Introduction
On 13th December, 2006 the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted at the United Nations in New York, opened for signature on 30th March, 2007 and entered into force on 3rd May, 2008. The purpose of this Convention is “to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity” (United Nations, 2006, article 1, p.4). The general principles include, among others, the following points:
“(a) Respect for inherent dignity, individual autonomy including the freedom to make one’s own choices, and independence of persons;
(b) Non-discrimination;
(c) Full and effective participation and inclusion in society;
(d) Respect for difference and acceptance of persons with disabilities as part of human diversity and humanity;
(e) Equality of opportunity;
(f) Accessibility;
(g) Equality between men and women;” (article 3, p.5)
By signing the Convention, State Parties “recognize the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others, and shall take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right and their full inclusion and participation in the community” (Article 19 p. 13). According to Article 30 (p.5), State Parties should take “appropriate” measures “to encourage and promote the participation, to the fullest extent possible, of persons with disabilities in mainstream sporting activities at all levels”.
On 10th May, 2011 the 100th State Party ratified the Convention (United Nations, 2011) and 148 countries have since signed it. The number of ratifications and signatures indicate clearly that there is a worldwide political will to guarantee all people with disabilities full inclusion in our societies.
On the occasion of the Bejing Olympic Games in 2008, you could read in the “News Stories” of the United Nations that:
“persons with disabilities have the right to participate in sporting and recreational activities at all levels; organizing and participating in sports; receiving the necessary instruction, training and resources; and accessing sporting, recreational and leisure venues. In addition, children and youth with disabilities have the right to play and the right to equal access in sporting, recreational and leisure activities, including those within the educational system” (United Nations, 2008).
The same article highlighted that “Paralympic athletes embody the highest ideals of humanity - they challenge the boundaries set by society and aim to develop and maximize their potential as world-class athletes” (United Nations, 2008).
However, central to this article are the following questions: Is the Paralympic movement really a body which emphasises inclusion? And does it really foster the “highest ideals of humanity” as mentioned in the United Nations statement quoted above?
Our purpose now is to indicate that despite political will, and despite all the efforts to create an inclusive society, sport per se is still a field where discrimination against people with disabilities persists. When we analyse disability and sport, there appears to be a contradiction between the common ethical and civilisation discourses of the 21st century and the discourses in today’s sport which rely widely on the 19th century sports model. We will try to focus here on these contradictions and to deconstruct the traditional sport discourses. At the end, we will propose strategies for change and possible accommodations in the fields of sport and physical education in order to improve the application of human rights for people with disabilities in the sporting arenas, where the necessity to exclude seems to be still taken for granted.
Most of the Olympic sports of today derive directly from modern sports that were construed in the time period between the early 18th and the late 19th centuries as record seeking, institutionalised and highly formalised activities (Guttmann, 1978, p. 57). They can be seen as cultural practices that took their essential forms in social contexts and are mostly characterised by male values, which were dominant in a time period of colonial conquests, rising nationalism, armed conflicts and industrial capitalism. Sports were designed in this period to promote toughness, efficiency, power, ability and competitiveness of young men in order to prepare them for military service and the struggles of life. There was no place for the weak, for women, the elderly or for people with disabilities. Thus, many of our sports of today are codified traditional games and exercises, which as previously mentioned, had served to prepare man for war and hunting.
Interestingly, sport in pre-modern times was not prone to classify human bodies – instead, it used proxy variables like social class or family status (married vs. unmarried) to regulate participation or to build teams. It is modern sport that has started to categorise bodies according to their morphology and ability. Classifications and handicaps were introduced into sport rules in order to guarantee an exciting competition with an open outcome, and to fulfill the myth of equal chances for all competitors.
Normalising statistics and modern sport were born in the same era(1) . Indeed, codified sport has become a form of bio-power to discipline and to normalise the body. It uses all the instruments of a disciplining power described by Michel Foucault (1975, p.215) as ‘it compares, differentiates, hierarchizes, homogenizes and excludes’. It is clear then that as male values and ableist standards are still dominant in most sports today, those groups in society who do not fit these value structures are still marginalised.
In 1904, at the Olympic Games in St Louis, in an era when the categorising and excluding discourses focused on gender and race or ethnicity and when the instruments of categorizing were rather rudimentary, George Eiser, a gymnast from the USA, won three gold medals on the parallel bars, in rope climbing and in vaulting the long horse. In addition, he finished second in the all-round event and finally won a bronze medal on the horizontal bars. To win six medals at the Olympic Games is certainly an extraordinary performance; the most astonishing aspect of this success however, is that George Eiser competed with the handicap of a wooden leg.
Normalising Exclusion
Exclusion and marginalisation of individuals is inherent in sports today but this is not a new phenomenon. At the already mentioned Olympic Games in St Louis, women, except six who competed in archery, were excluded. Indeed, special competitions, called the “Anthropology Days” were organised for the “savages” to show the superiority of athletes from Western civilised cultures (Brownell, 2008). Particularities or impairments of the body, however, were at this time still considered as curiosities of nature (lusus naturae) before becoming categorised by the medical discourse as abnormal, as pathologies or disabilities. In North America, it was in the 1930s that “the medical profession had gained the authority to present people with physical and mental differences to the public in terms of their choosing, and these were the terms of pathology” (Bogdan, 1988).
When sport gradually became more and more professionalised and commercialized, the time of laughter and insouciance was clearly over for many participants. In order to fulfill the myth of equality of chances, normalising, homogenising, comparing and hierarchising became a serious business in the sporting arena. People with disabilities were consigned to rehabilitation activities and the medical paradigm started to dominate the field of disabled sports. Incredible as it seems, we feel that even today, the disabling pathological perspective is prevalent in sport.
Due to the progress of biotechnologies, techniques and instruments of disciplining the body have became increasingly refined. Women who had struggled for a long period to be accepted in the field of sport and who were still excluded from some sports had, and again today, have to undergo increasingly refined tests to prove that they belong to the homogenised and normalised category of the ‘female sex’.(2) People originally classified as unable to participate in mainstream sport have to face biomechanical tests if they want to compete with able-bodied athletes and must prove that they are not “too able” as it was shown in the case of Oscar Pistorius, who is called “the fastest man on no legs”.(3)
Every act of categorising includes, and at the same time, excludes. We argue that classifications or rankings based on proxy variables like age, gender or ability/disability are political acts that lead to segregation and that are often discriminatory and disempowering to the individual. Indeed, the commonly advanced argument in order to justify the creation of a special category for people with disabilities is a naturalising one: Due to their impairments, “these people” are considered not to be able to practice sport together or along with the “normal” athletes, as sport demands natural, sports specific abilities. For example, the Human Rights Commission of the Australian Government considers that the Disability Discrimination Act “makes discrimination unlawful in sport except if

- a person is not reasonably capable of performing actions reasonably required in relation to the sporting activity; or
- people who participate in the sporting activity are selected by a method which is reasonable on the basis of relevant skills and abilities; or
- a sporting activity is conducted only for persons who have a particular disability and the person does not have that disability” (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2009).

These exceptions sound reasonable and understandable; however, in practice this kind of discourse, as it explicitly addresses people with disabilities, contributes to cement the existing categories. This discourse suggests that sport is something immutable, and that people have to adapt to the sport, and if they are not able to develop the required capacities and skills, they have to stay on the margins or practice sports in a special category, i.e. ‘the category of disabled sports’ which is itself internally differentiated by multiple classifications. The third exception formulated by the Australian Human Rights Commission does not refer to a sport specific variable, for example, a special ability or capacity, but uses the overall proxy variable “disability”. In using this identity based category, this “exception” builds barriers against reversed integration in the field of sport in general.
It is evident that many people, even if they are part of the “able bodied” category, do not meet the required skills for certain activities, but luckily today’s sport offers an abundant variety of sporting events and disciplines. Almost everybody can find a sport and a modality of activity according to their abilities, capacities and morphology. Before excluding people from sport, we should render sport even more open to all kind of human embodiments and make it accessible as far as possible. Unfortunately, we don’t often use the inclusive potential of physical activities. Instead of accommodating these activities to the people willing to exercise and to compete, we try to adapt people to the activities, or, at most, adapt or create some activities for a special population.
Separate Games = Separate People
Even sport organisations, which claim to promote the lofty ideals of fair-play, mutual understanding and equality of opportunity, accept or even contribute significantly to the exclusion of athletes with disabilities. Indeed, different actions and strategies of the International Olympic Committee, which claims in its charter there should be promotion of “sport without discrimination of any kind” (IOC, 2007, p.11) can be considered as discriminatory against athletes with disabilities. From 1984 to 2004, wheelchair competitions were included in the program of the Olympic Games, without however giving full medal status to these events. Certain athletes and commentators considered this as a discriminatory practice towards the athletes with disabilities. Up until the 1990s, there was a strong faction of people within the Paralympic movement who struggled for the right to be integrated into the Olympic movement. However, finally the powerful IOC had the more convincing arguments.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC), dependent largely on the money of its big brother, seduced by the illusion of big profits and the hypocritical discourse on the Paralympic Games as “Parallel Games” has accepted that its athletes are classified definitely in the category of the disabled, and as such excluded from the Olympic Games. Interestingly, Corrigan Paton, Holt and Hardin (2010, p.303) argue that this “farce” of considering the Paralympics as parallel “reinforces an unjust but seemingly natural body hierarchy”.
At the same time, the IPC itself, by substituting the traditional disabled sport that celebrated equality and communal participation over performance and by embracing the logic of high-performance sport of the Olympic movement, excludes many athletes of the disabled community who do not fit into the new commercial agenda (Howe and Jones, 2006; Schantz and Gilbert, 2011).
We feel strongly that classifying human beings on the basis of their abilities or disabilities can be seen as dehumanising, degrading and humiliating. According to the anthropologist and former Paralympian David Howe, the process of classification “is an alienating experience, as each time a different set of individuals determines whether your body fits into the textbook of carnal typology that is acceptable to those who govern the particular element of Paralympic sport that the athletes wish to be a part” (Howe, 2008, p.71). It can be argued that classification is a crude form of governmentality of the athlete’s bodies and a technology of dominance over the body (cf. Foucault, 1982; 2001a; 2001c). The fact that the IPC accepts and promotes the separated “parallel” Games can be seen as highly problematic, because identity-based movements risk becoming “contested as exclusionary and internally hierarchical” (Tremain, 2006, p.194). The athletes with disabilities should refuse subjecting identity and individuality, not claim it or get trapped in it (Tremain, 2006; Foucault, 2001b; Sen, 2006).
The constellation of spectacular Olympic Games, with the elite able-bodied athletes on the one hand and the second class Paralympic Games on the other hand, is neither empowering for those athletes who consider themselves as high-performance athletes first, nor for those who want to enjoy practicing sports and competitions within the community of people with disabilities.
Sport can surely contribute to the empowerment of certain successful individual athletes and can help them to leave the “disability ghetto” (Page, O’Connor and Peterson, 2001; Huang and Brittain, 2006). However, these sportsmen and women are a very small fringe of the community of people with disabilities; they are the lucky ‘super-crips’ and it is only a small percentage of the persons with disabilities who are likely to take them as role models. The existence of the exceedingly mediated and celebrated Olympic Games on the one hand and the more or lesser known Paralympic Games on the other, does not contribute to the empowerment of the community of persons with disabilities. This is supported by a recent unpublished study in Stratford, the United Kingdom, (home of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics) where the authors asked 50 of the local community if they knew what the Paralympic Games were all about and when they were being held. The answer to all questions from all respondents was in the negative. ‘They had no clue about the Paralympics’. We realise that this is only a small sample but we expect many more individuals to also have little or no knowledge of the Paralympic Games. Whose fault is this?
In this manner, two separate Games risk reinforcing the separation between the able bodied athletes and those with disabilities; or, as Goggin and Newell (2005, p.81) argue, “…..the existence of a special event for people identified as having disability is a painful reminder of inequity and injustice, and its presence perpetuates the discourse of ‘special needs’ and ‘special events’“.
Although the Paralympic movement tries hard to increase its symbolic capital in order to change it into economic capital, it will probably never reach the prestige of the Olympic movement. The product the IOC is selling fits the demand of the average sport consumers: it trades a world-wide mediated mega event that presents enchanting stories and values, as well as images of young beautiful, powerful, gracious and healthy athletes; it sells the myth of a sport event capable of creating a peaceful and better world. In comparison, the Paralympic movement appears to be a communal movement, which is united by a common identity, a common culture based on disability; even though it seeks to be an elite sport organisation focusing on sporting excellence. The product the IPC tries to sell is quite different from that of the IOC and sport consumers are much less eager to buy it. Indeed, for the average consumer, sport is generally associated with the notions of health, vitality, ability, power and independence, while disability is stereotypically related to the labels of illness, invalidity, disability, helplessness and dependence. The territory of the Olympic sportsmen and women is the stadium, but the territory of the people with disabilities is the special rehabilitation institution or the hospital (Goffman, 1963). Unfortunately, this kind of labeling is still alive in many people’s minds. This is certainly the most important reason why sponsors are reluctant to engage in disabled sport, as they don’t want to be associated with such negative labeling. For similar and connected reasons, the media coverage of the Paralympic Games is rather poor compared to the Olympic Games, even though in certain countries it has largely improved during the last decade (Schantz and Gilbert, 2001).
The attitudes towards the Paralympic movement are often ambiguous: on the one hand, people admire the will power and the prowess of Paralympians and consider them as heroes overcoming their fate; on the other, they feel pity for these sportsmen and women. While the Olympic Games are a kind of social Darwinism in the sports arena, promoting the survival of the fittest, the Paralympic games have evolved in a space of liminality (Murphy, 1987) lodged firmly between being a tough and bellicose sport spectacle and a charity event and always in second position behind the Olympic Games
By disseminating and perpetuating standards of physical beauty, fitness and absolute performance, the Olympics contribute to the exclusion of persons with disabilities, thus promoting an ableist world view. The Olympic Movement thoroughly transformed its symbolic power, which is due to its mythical and idealistic narratives as well as its images of embodied excellence and its worldwide popularity and appeal as a showcase of national interests developing into financial and political power. The IOC is now the most powerful sports organisations in the world, which is fawned over by the presidents of such powerful states as the United States of America and Russia. The Paralympic movement is now almost completely dependent of and reliant on the IOC (the OCOG, stadia, volunteers, technical experts, financial support and marketing). It does not fit the glamorous and elitist image of the Olympics; sometimes one gets the impression that it just serves as a means to cultivate the charity image and reassure the social conscience of the IOC. The Olympics and Paralympics are thus in a binary opposition, which is hierarchical in nature. Indeed, as long as sporting performance is only recognised in absolute and quantitative terms, reflecting the mainstream philosophy of our western competitive world, all people who are part of other than the very top category, will automatically be marginalised. Sportsmen, and, to an even greater extent, sportswomen in the disabled category will continue to be positioned as second class athletes and at the bottom of the world’s physical elite scale. According to Peter Kell and collaborators, they will be the losers in a sports world based on “free enterprise” that “contradicts the importance of the state structures to support the needs of the disabled where the market forces repeatedly fail them in all spheres of life” (Kell, Kell and Price, 2008, p.165).
As long as professional or elite sport does not radically change its logic of “faster, higher and stronger”, it will be utopian to think that by “becoming ‘Parallel Olympians’, athletes with disabilities can try to get away from the oxymoron that ‘disabled athletes’ may be perceived as and be allowed to associate themselves with a movement that sells itself as being about sport as a vehicle for ‘peace and understanding as well as sport of the very highest level” (Brittain, 2010, p.93). The standards of play and performances in Paralympic sports will always be measured against the ‘norms’ of Olympic sports. Without fundamental change, there will always be the glamorous category of the Olympic Games for the very best and then the lower category for the brave Paralympians who have overcome their “terrible fate”. In our sport frenetic society, physical prowess often becomes an indicator of a person’s value, not only in sport but also in other domains. By separating elite sport in a category for able-bodied and disabled sport, we risk perpetuating the image of the less valuable disabled and as such, to disempower the whole community of individuals with disabilities. However, exclusion seems to be taken for granted in the domain of top level sport. Will it one day be possible to demolish one of the last bastions of unequal treatment of persons with disabilities by rendering sport accessible for inclusive competitions at all levels?
Concluding statements
Top level athletes with disabilities, like the South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius, the “fastest man on no legs”, need accessibility to able-bodied sport instead of discrimination and exclusion. By accommodating and changing the rules and/or the equipment, some sports could be made accessible to athletes with disabilities (Schantz, 2001). New sports, which allow athletes with and without disabilities to compete side by side, should be included in the Olympic Program. One laudable example is the accommodation of the swimming events in Sydney 2000 Olympics, when an optic signal was added to the acoustical departure signal in order to allow fair competition for a participating swimmer with deafness. Indeed, why not consider the wheelchair just like the bicycle as sports equipment? Wheelchair sports could be included as a full medal sport, open for able-bodied athletes. Thus for example wheelchair basketball could become an exciting spectator sport in the Olympic program. The same could be done in the Winter Games with sled-skiing. There are different examples of sport which could easily be rendered accessible for people with disabilities, like powerlifting, shooting, archery, sailing or tandem cycling (Schantz, 2001).
To improve the accessibility of mainstream sport through accommodation and adaptation of sports is the only way to real inclusion without discrimination (Schantz, 2001). All kinds of categorising and the building of hierarchical, hegemonic structures thus lead to marginalisation in a sports model which values only the absolute best, the often quoted citius – altius – fortius. We argue that the fact of having two Games, one for the Olympians and one for the Paralympians, promotes an ableist viewpoint that considers the able-bodied as the norm of top level sports.
Sport organisations that present themselves as moral institutions, like the IOC that claims “to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity” (IOC, 2007, p.11) should think about and experiment with new forms of inclusive sport activities. The IOC moved on this at the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore by augmenting the number of mixed events, like mixed relays in athletics, in order to improve the inclusion of women in sport. A next step could be to think about offering more inclusive events and/or to accommodate rules and techniques of some sports in order to make the Olympic Games more accessible for the so-called “athletes with disabilities” and to offer the possibility to practice sport at all levels “without discrimination of any kind” as it is stated in the IOC charter (2007, p.11).
Only by giving equal access to the Olympic Games for excellent athletes from the whole range of humankind will the IOC really fulfill its claim of universalism. We believe that the IOC can no longer exclude or discriminate against an important part of humanity and that the IPC should conserve and develop the Paralympic Games as a show case of the sporting culture for people with disabilities. It should develop the Paralympic Movement/Games as an alternative sports culture, which meets the needs of all people with disabilities, but keeps integration and inclusion as a main objective. It should try to go its own way, in collaboration with other sport organisations, but not try to copy the IOC. As a simple copy of the IOC, it will always be a second class sporting movement (Schantz, 2001).
Education in general, as well as physical education, should not, in our opinion, just describe, explain, prepare for and reproduce the existing world. Higher education institutions, schools and colleges that teach physical education should question our world, think about and test new possibilities in order to transform and change it into a better place to live for all. Physical education should emphasise new emancipating forms of physical activities, thereby challenging the old 19th century values of modern sports, which we hope will be obsolete in a future world, where solidarity should be more important to assure the survival of our species than competitiveness of the individual (Jacquard, 2004).
It would be a naturalistic fallacy to try to refute this point of view by arguing that we cannot change sport because we already fit into it and agree with its mainstream values such as power, violence, manliness, courage and competition; since, as humans, we are evolutionary products that cannot deny our origins as hunters, gatherers and warriors. Sport is indeed a socially constructed practice and hence, so are the categories used in sports. In our final statements, we believe that these practices need to be questioned persistently and acted upon permanently in order to follow the cultural evolution towards an inclusive and better society as it is reflected by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities adopted by the United Nations.

Notes
(1) In 1809 Carl Friedrich Gauß (1777-1855)published in his monograph “Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis solem ambientium” different important statistical concepts, such as the method of least squares, the method of maximum likelihood, and the normal (Gaussian) distribution.
(2) See the case of Caster Semenya.
(3) Oscar Pistorius was accused of “technical doping” as he replaced his lacking legs by prostheses. Narrow minded scientist proved that the “Cheetah” prostheses gave him a mechanical and physiological advantage, and recommended not to admit him into Olympic competition. These arguments are narrow minded, as they did not take into consideration the broader structure of his sporting performance and even less the philosophical or ethical aspects of the question. Almost all sporting performances are complex and determined by different factors. In the 400m sprint it is not exclusively the speed in the last 100m which will decide the overall performance. The capacity to accelerate at the departure and the ability to run in the curves are other, for Pistorius disadvantageous, and factors which influence the performance and outcome. As long as his overall performance allows an interesting competition with an open outcome, why should we exclude him from competing with sporting partners at his level?
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Contact
Prof. Dr. Otto J. Schantz
University of Koblenz
Koblenz, Germany
Email: Schantz@uni-koblenz.de
Prof. Dr. Keith Gilbert
University of East London
School of Health and Biosciences
London, United Kingsom
Email: k.gilbert@uel.ac.uk

Youth, Disability and the Use of Sport in African Post-conflict Zones
Ian Brittain
Introduction
There is a steadily growing body of research regarding the significance of non-disabled sport within society and the potential impacts it can have, particularly in terms of developing `better` citizens in terms of health, behaviour and productivity (cf. Coalter, 2007). There is also a growing body of work regarding the use of sport for the non-disabled in conflict zones as a means of development and brokering peace. However, there appears to be little work which addresses these issues with regard to the use of sport for the disabled and the role it might play both in the re-integration into society of people with disabilities and the impact it can have upon changing perceptions of people with disabilities within the wider community and thus aiding the re-integration process. There appears to be some attempts to use sports for the rehabilitation of youth with disabilities in places such as Sierra Leone and Liberia where they play amputee football, but what is lacking is a comprehensive understanding of the potential of sport in responding to the challenges faced by youth with physical disabilities in post-conflict zones.
Over the last three decades, there have been numerous civil wars and conflicts erupting on the African continent including those in Angola, Algeria, Burundi, Congo, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Eritrea/Ethiopia, Liberia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan and South Sudan/Darfur, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Recent events in North Africa and the Middle East and post-election violence in Kenya mean that Egypt, Kenya, Libya and Tunisia can be added to this list. Some of the consequences of these conflicts, and their impacts on people with disabilities, are highlighted below.
The Challenges
The Department for International Development (DFID) in the United Kingdom (UK) broadly defines social exclusion as a process by which certain groups are systematically disadvantaged because they are discriminated against on the basis of their ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, caste, descent, gender, age, disability, HIV status, migrant status or where they live (2005: p.3). Discrimination occurs in public institutions, such as the legal system or education and health services, as well as social institutions like the household. Moreover, it is considered as a priority because it both causes poverty and impedes poverty reduction; however, poverty reduction policies rarely reach socially excluded groups unless they are specifically designed to include them. According to DFID, social exclusion is a leading cause of conflict and insecurity. Indeed, Maclay and Özerdem (2010) claim that youth participation in Liberia`s conflict was largely fuelled by this marginalised status, and by a disconnection from broader society. A World Bank (2006) report concludes by highlighting the need to address youth marginalisation, particularly through ensuring youth participation in the planning and implementation of youth-orientated programmes, and warns that continued exclusion could force young people to once again resort to violence.
One of the main impacts of armed conflict is that there is a high level of disabilities caused by small arms and light weapons (SALW), including anti-personnel landmines. Youth, both as civilians and combatants, appear to be one of the most affected groups who become disabled, and it is often the case that there are no adequate socio-economic services and opportunities in post-conflict environments to help deal with the many issues raised by these conflict-induced disabilities. However, research relating to the impact of conflict induced disability, particularly with regard to children, is scarce, although this may be partly due to the difficulties of carrying out research in the often challenging situation of a post-conflict society. Indeed, it is equally important not to overlook the issues for those who received their disabilities as a result of accidents or birth defects, otherwise there would be a risk of further marginalising an already marginalised group. People, and particularly children, with disabilities do not have equal opportunities and equal access regarding most parts of life. Handicap International claim this lack of access includes basic services (especially education and health), because of physical inaccessibility to the buildings, lack of information in adapted formats (e.g. Braille) and discriminatory behaviour within society. In addition, individuals with disabilities tend to suffer disproportionately during and after conflict situations have occurred. They are often the most exposed to protection risks, including physical and sexual violence, exploitation, harassment and discrimination (Reilly, 2010). This is particularly true for females. Research by the United Nations indicates that violence against children with disabilities occurs at annual rates at least 1.7 times greater than for their non-disabled peers. Finally, they also lack options for making a living and, therefore, the opportunity to transcend out of poverty, which often means they either remain as a burden on their families or are forced to beg to make a living. Disability and poverty are also closely linked with insecure living conditions, lack of access to basic services, malnutrition and other dimensions of poverty not only leading directly to disabilities, but also making life much harder for those who are born with or acquire disabilities through accidents or as a result of conflict. Add to these facts the issue of the perceived stigma attached not only to the person with a disability, but also their families, which can cause parents to try and conceal their disabled children, and it is clear that life for a person with a disability in former conflict zones in Africa is very difficult indeed. The rehabilitation of children with conflict-induced disabilities needs to bear in mind a set of additional issues such as the context of poverty, social stigma, cultural values and traditions prevalent within the society under investigation. Moreover, as there are always many priorities for reconstruction in post-conflict affected environments, and people with disabilities and particularly children are far less likely to have access to decision making processes, means of production and financial capital, they tend to be further marginalised within society.
One further issue for people with disabilities in conflict zones is that they often become displaced from their villages and local communities, either forcibly or out of fear for their own safety and often end up in internal displacement camps, where conditions are often far from ideal to meet their needs. However, once the resettlement process is underway, the devastation caused by the conflict in terms of the destruction of villages and infrastructure, often means that people with disabilities are one of the hardest groups to re-settle. They also often meet other people with disabilities in the camps that enable them to achieve some sort of camaraderie, which is often preferable to the isolation they can feel in their own villages where they can be shunned or stigmatised by their acquired disability (Duerden, 2010).
Estimating accurate numbers for the disabled population in a given country in a post-conflict situation is often almost impossible. A lack of consistency in terminology and methodologies for data collection, cultural differences in definitions and concepts of disability, and lack of training or disability awareness amongst data collection staff will all affect the accuracy of the data. This is also compounded by some of the issues highlighted above regarding stigma and the hiding away of the people with disabilities, difficulties of researching in isolated (and sometimes dangerous) rural areas and the general administrative and bureaucratic chaos that follows a prolonged conflict situation. In short, life for children and youth with disabilities in a post-conflict environment often means marginalisation, exclusion, disparity, poverty and ostracisation. It is, therefore, very important for them to have opportunities to address these challenges. Sport can be a low-cost and effective means to foster positive health and well-being, social inclusion and community building for people with a disability.
The Benefits of Sport
Sir Ludwig Guttmann (1976; pp. 12-13), internationally recognised founder of the modern day Paralympic movement highlighted three main areas in which participation in sport could benefit people with disabilities:
1. Sport as a Curative Factor
According to Guttmann, sport represents the most natural form of remedial exercise and can be used to successfully complement other forms of remedial exercise. Sport can be invaluable in restoring the overall fitness, including strength, speed, co-ordination and endurance, of someone receiving a disabling injury. Tasiemski, Bergstrom, Savic and Gardner (1998) point out how sport can be of particular benefit to individuals with certain disabilities. Following a pilot study on individuals recovering from a spinal cord lesion, they state:
"Systematically practised physical activity and sports allows the disabled person to keep the high level of physical fitness that was obtained during rehabilitation. It also helps to maintain compensatory processes and prevent complications caused by inactivity. Physical activity and sports are amongst the most important factors that determine the effectiveness and final outcomes of physical rehabilitation."
(Tasiemski et al., 1998; unpublished)
They also found that the frequency of hospital readmissions per year following discharge was three times less in athletes than it was in non-athletes, adding weight to their claim that those involved in activities away from the home, especially physical ones such as sport, are physically fitter, more independent and have fewer avoidable complications.
2. The Recreational and Psychological Value of Sport
Guttmann claims that the big advantage of sport for the disabled over other remedial exercises lies within its recreational value in that it restores `that passion for playful activity and the desire to experience joy and pleasure in life, so deeply inherent in any human being` (1976; p. 12). Guttmann also points out that much of the restorative power of sport is lost if the person with the disability does not enjoy their participation in it. As long as enjoyment is derived from the activity, then sport can help develop an active mind, self-confidence, self-dignity, self-discipline, competitive spirit and camaraderie, all of which are essential in helping to overcome the all-consuming depression that can occur with sudden traumatic disability.
3. Sport as a means of Social Re-integration
There are certain sports where people with disabilities are capable of competing alongside their non-disabled peers e.g. archery, bowls, table tennis, as Neroli Fairhall of New Zealand proved when she competed from a wheelchair in archery at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. This helps create a better understanding between people with disabilities and their non-disabled peers and aids in their social re-integration through the medium of sport.
More recent research in the field appears to continue to add credence to Guttmann`s claims. Berger (2008) claims that the benefits gained by participation in sport include improved physical conditioning and a sense of bodily mastery, along with a heightened sense of self-esteem and personal empowerment that spills over into other social pursuits (p. 650). These comments appear to concur with the findings of Sporner et al (2009) who investigated the psychosocial impact of participation in the 2006 National Veterans Wheelchair Games and Winter Sports Clinic for 132 veterans with disabilities. Key findings included that 84% felt that participation in these events led them to a greater acceptance of their own disabilities and 77.1% felt it led to their own greater participation in society.
There are examples of this process at work for children with disabilities in former African conflict zones, although such examples are few and far between. PlayAble, an organisation based in the Netherlands, works on sporting projects with children with disabilities in Kenya, Mozambique and Uganda. They work not only with the children, but also train coaches and try to involve the local community as much as possible. As an example of the potential impact of sport for children with disabilities on the re-integration process, they cite the following case:
`Ismail is one of the coaches who manage to use the platform of sport as a powerful tool to spread positive messages about the rights and abilities of people with disabilities. In one of the slum areas in Nairobi (Kenya), outreach activities for children with all abilities were organised every other week. Some of these children had to be picked up from their homes where parents locked them up in fear of discrimination and sexual abuse. Since the activities were new and novel, community members came to watch and the coaches also invited teachers from a local school and the local governor. After a couple of activities they sat together to talk about the right of education. Once they had seen and realised the great abilities of the children, they together decided to open a special unit in the local school to allow 20 children with disabilities to enrol in the school`. (PlayAble Website, 2011)
Conclusive Statement
I will conclude with a short example from one of the African post-conflict zones.
An Example from an African Post-Conflict Zone: Sierra Leone
Between 1991 and 2001, about 50 000 people were killed in Sierra Leone`s civil war. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes, and many became refugees in Guinea and Liberia. In 2001, UN forces moved into rebel-held areas and began to disarm rebel soldiers. By January 2002, the war was declared over. By 2004, the DDR (disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration) process was complete. However, throughout the ten years of civil war, many thousands of people, both combatants and non-combatants, suffered disabling injuries as a result of the conflict. This includes many youths (children at the time) who, in most cases, were forced to become child soldiers and either became injured in combat or had limbs hacked off for disobeying orders or even just as a warning to others. Add to this those people born with birth defects due to the severe poverty and those disabled by accidents, then the number of disabled youth in Sierra Leone becomes disproportionately high compared to other countries that have not undergone a recent conflict. Trani, Bah, Bailey, Browne, Grace and Kett (2009; p.13) claim research by UNICEF in 2005 estimated that the prevalence of disability in Sierra Leone could be as high as 24% for children.
According to Gottschalk (2007) the common greeting in Sierra Leone is `How de Body?` which she claims reflects a culture that places its social and communal identity in the physical realm. According to Heeren (2003) amputees have reported that they feel rejected by society in post-conflict Sierra Leone because the public does not want to be reminded of what they have done to them. The introduction of amputee football has had a major impact upon these perceptions by changing attitudes towards individuals with amputees and thus giving them back a sense of self-respect. In addition, the use of mixed-tribal teams has helped break down, or at least blur, some of the lines of conflict along which the original war was fought. However, this only deals with amputees, and only single amputees at that (i.e. one limb). Other impairments such as paralysis or visually impairments are still to a large degree overlooked and so there are still many opportunities for sport to be used as a re-integration tool for people with disabilities all over Africa.

References
Berger, R.J., 2008, Disability and the Dedicated Wheelchair Athlete: Beyond the “Supercrip” Critique, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 37 (6); p. 647 – 678.
Coalter, F. (2007). A wider social role for sport: who`s keeping the score? Routledge, UK.
DFID (2005). Reducing poverty by tackling social exclusion, Department for International Development, London.
Duerden, S. (2010). Displacement limbo in Sierra Leone. Available at: (www.fmreview.org/disability/Duerden.doc). (accessed 15th September 2010).
Gottschalk, P. (2007). “How are we in this world now?” Examining the experiences of persons disabled by war in the peace processes of Sierra Leone, Unpublished Masters thesis, University of Victoria, Canada.
Guttmann, L. (1976). Textbook of Sport for the Disabled, Alden Press, Oxford.
Handicap International (undated) Position Statement-Disability and PRS in Liberia. Available at: (www.handicap-international.fr/...handicap/4PolitiqueHandicap/.../Position_paper_liberia.doc). (accessed 15th September 2010).
Heeren, N. (2003). Sierra Leone and civil war: Neglected trauma and forgotten children, Revue Humanitaire, Vol. 9, Medicins du Monde, Paris.
Maclay, C. & Özerdem, A. (2010). `Use` Them or `Lose` Them: Engaging Liberia`s Disconnected Youth through Socio-political Integration in International Peacekeeping, Vol.17 (3): 344–361.
Reilly, R. (2010). Disabilities among refugees and conflict-affected populations Available at: (http://www.fmreview.org/disability/FMR35/08-10.pdf). (accessed 15th September 2010).
Sporner, M.L., Fitzgerald, S.G., Dicianno, B.E., Collins, D., Teodorski, E., Pasquina, P.F. & Cooper, R.A., 2009, Psychosocial impact of participation in the National Veterans Games and Winter Sports Clinic, Disability and Rehabilitation, Vol. 31(5); p. 410 – 418.
Tasiemski, T., Bergstrom, E., Savic, G. & Gardner, B. P. (1998). Sports, Recreation and Employment Following Spinal Cord Injury – a Pilot Study, (Unpublished).
Trani, J-F., Bah, O., Bailey, N., Browne, J., Grace, N. & Kett, M., (2009). Disability: In and Around Urban Areas of Sierra Leone, Leonard Cheshire and University College London, UK.
United Nations (undated). Factsheet on Persons with Disabilities.
Available at: (http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=18). (accessed 15th September 2010).
The World Bank Group (2006). Govment bizness na wi bizness: Building demand for good governance and enhancing conditions for social accountability in Sierra Leone.

Contact
Dr. Ian Brittain
Coventry University
Coventry, United Kingdom
Email: Ian.brittain@coventry.ac.uk

Inclusive Research: Dis/ability, Difference and the Paralympic Games
Jill M. Le Clair

Impact of the Paralympic Games
Historically, those with different bodies were usually overlooked or ignored in many aspects of scientific and social research unless there was a political agenda of management, sadly often negative or barbaric (Mangan,1999). The Paralympic Games and the Paralympic Movement have played a very important role in shifting conventional expectations about ability, movement and inclusion both in national contexts, and globally. The high performance sport feats by disabled athletes has challenged previous limited expectations about persons with disabilities and questioned implicit assumptions about human performance in sport and in society as a whole. The political battles of the Paralympic Movement around accessibility and human rights attacked the prejudice, stigma and discrimination that had lead to policies and practices of isolation and exclusion. (1)
Recent research on the Paralympic Games and athletes with disabilities (Gilbert and Schantz, 2008; Howe, 2008; Legg and Gilbert, 2011; Le Clair, 2012) has illustrated the move to the inclusion of persons with disabilities within society and within sport, as definitions of normalcy have been challenged and reframed by the Disability Rights Movement and by academia (Linton, 1998; Garland-Thomson, 2010). The medical/welfare model was replaced by the social construction model and now with a rights-based approach represented by the 2006 UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In the light of these changes, and the Games, this perspective paper argues for a critical approach to support more inclusive research and three aspects are briefly discussed: `normalcy,` ableism, the absent disabled and omissions that have been commonplace historically and still continue; the importance of more inclusive or holistic research for a more accurate understanding of social issues, and some omissions within disability research and questions in the context of future disability research.
Ableism and Absent citizens
Challenge to disability-defined sport
The concept of the `normal` and `normalcy` were constructed in the 19th century, used by researchers as a framework for their work, and it was assumed that individuals hear, see, think, walk and talk without physical challenges, disabilities or impairments, and difference was and is, frequently overlooked and rarely acknowledged (Davis, 2010a).(2) Ableism preferences the able-bodied and reflects the unequal power relations that privileges the non-disabled. For a non-disabled person, disability is often invisible. The assumption that everyone is non-disabled is commonplace in research and public discourse, and rarely did researchers or writers examine the lived body of the subjects they wrote about.(3) The concomitant of this was persons with a disability were seen to be primarily defined by disability itself, (Goffman, 1986), and the nature of their disability, so sport competition was defined by disability. The Paralympic Games began to shift its organisational structure from disability-based to sport based organisation. In swimming, Canada had four different swim teams, each disability based. In the 1980s, this began to change from categories of difference with disability-based competition to sport-based classification and competition. The focus became grouping swimmers by their propulsive ability through the water, not the nature of their disability and Paralympic swimmers were gradually integrated into Swimming Canada (Le Clair, 2009).
Absent citizens and absent research `subjects`
Prince (2009) outlines the omission of the disabled in his book Absent Citizens: Disability Politics and Policy in Canada. The term `absent` captures the disability reality in many aspects of society and research.(4) Disabled research `subjects` or as Dupuis (1999) prefers, the more reflexive term `participants as agents` (Watson, 2010: p356) are often absent, as are disabled researchers themselves.(5) Linked to this absence are diverse aspects tied to accessibility issues – physical barriers, social barriers, cognitive and key, financial barriers. Charlton (1998) rightly insists that accessibility is tied to the socio-economic, political and financial issues that are an impact on disability in all aspects.
Access to education is essential for the participation of persons with disabilities in society and research. Historically, children with disabilities, whether physical or intellectual, were excluded from mainstream schools with few accommodations made for those who were included (Swanwick & Marschark, 2010). Buildings, facilities and classrooms themselves were often inaccessible; students in the West sometimes had to be physically lifted in their wheelchairs to gain access to an education and the ongoing reality for many students in low and middle-income countries is that with limited resources, they are forced to stay at home because of the absence of sidewalks and roads and the lack of resources such canes, walkers, wheelchairs, scooters and communication technology. Once in a post-secondary environment, accommodations are mostly unavailable and inequities continue for disabled teachers and faculty (McDermid, 2009) and lower salaries are tied to minimal accommodations to maximise workload and income.
I nclusive research: methodological bias
Disability as a variable
Age, gender, socio-economic status (class), religion, sexual orientation and ethnicity/race variables in research are expected for even the smallest quantitative or qualitative study in order to obtain accurate information about the individuals and groups under study.(6) Disability is still not one of the expected variables and research categories at this time and often the body is overlooked.
Prendergast argues that postmodern theory has been indispensible to the understanding of disability and Critical Disability Studies are important because they have challenged normatively, and destabilised narratives of national progress, social order and identity (2010: p288). The Paralympic Games and Movement have played an important role in challenging standard assumptions about ableism and normacly by raising awareness about the diversity of human bodies and the achievements of `different` bodies. Language around disability has also changed significantly over the past twenty years both in the West and globally.(7) The Games have impacted globally on language around disability in sport too – from being labelled a `cripple` to a Paralympian symbolises a profound change. Coverage of high performance sport and national athletes and the athletes of other countries by local and international media have reframed the meaning of disability and disability in sport in many areas (Pappous, de Léséleuc & Marcellini, 2011).
Bias free inclusive research
Researchers are looking for more accurate analyses of social phenomenon and recognition of the privileges and exclusions of the past. This approach has been called both bias-free research and inclusive or holistic research.(8) This paper argues that in the same way gender and sexual orientation are routinely included as important variables in research, so too questions about ability should automatically be included in any research protocol. The Paralympic Games, with their focus on those who are usually defined as different and can often represent statistically small groups of the population, have highlighted the need to address diversity in research. There are increasing resources for researchers to address more inclusive research and two are briefly mentioned here. Mary Anne Burke and Margrit Eichler are the authors of Bias Free Framework: A Practical Tool for Identifying and Eliminating Social Biases in Health Research (2006), but their approach can be used in diverse topics and not only health research. This book explains and critiques the gaps and omissions in research design and methodologies of the past and outlines strategies for better, more inclusive research. Also, the United Kingdom (UK) National Centre for Research Methods and the UK Economic and Social Research Council have conducted extensive work on bias in research and its importance for the social sciences and policies that impact on large numbers of the population. They argue:
Social science data are notoriously full of missing values, non-responses, selection biases and their idiosyncrasies. Simple analyses are usually very misleading; instead a comprehensive set of inter-dependent sub-models are needed to model the data complexities and core processes that social scientists want to understand, (BIAS, 2011).
Their BIAS 1 research program includes: multiple bias modelling for observational studies recognising the “unmeasured confounding, missing/mis-measured data, and various selection biases”(Best, Geneletti, Molitor and McCandless, 2011).(9)
Future research and inclusiveness within disability research
This section briefly highlights some current challenges within disability research linked to criticisms about inclusion and methodology. Health and physical activity, so-called `White Disability Studies,` Muslim women in sport and technology are growing areas of study, all underpinned by socio-economic challenges and in the context of ethical questions in research.
Ethics
There are heated debates about the insider – outsider perspective of researchers and those who are, or are not disabled (MacBeth, 2010) as there are still few researchers who write from the `inside` as retired disabled athletes (Howe, 2008) or as a person with a disability (Le Clair, 2012). These issues go far beyond improved informed consent forms and are at the heart of how research is conducted; what will be the nature of collaboration between the disabled and the non-disabled and who benefits? What is the role of the activist?; as there are blurred lines between the researcher/activist as some sport researchers hold roles as administrators, classifiers, advocates and activists. Also, much of sport takes place in public places and increasingly important in the light of privacy issues and the use of digital and phone cameras are visual ethics (Perry & Marion, 2010) particularly important with the long history of visual exploitation in disability.(10)
Health and physical activity and `optimistic` research
There is increasing concern about rising health costs and governments are turning their attention to research on the benefits of sport and physical activity at the community or grass roots level supported by the high visibility of the Games, for youth and the rapidly aging population. They have found, however, that there is not a great deal to draw upon so this is an area that needs further exploration.(11)
Although small qualitative studies are more frequently criticised, biases and omissions are found within diverse methodologies(12) including the medical field where rigorous standards are expected. Perhaps, partially because of aging populations and the popularity of internet searches, there has been increasing public attention to bias in findings, the nature of the review process of journals such as The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine (Chalmers & Matthews, 2006; Sullivan, 2009), and the ethics of placebo use (Blackwell, 2011).
Cludd`s review of methodological studies on the influence of bias in clinical trials raises issues that are important in any evidence-based research. She found that there was a lack of adequate randomisation, selection bias, gaps between conduct and reporting, inadequate attention to `drop-outs`, and conflicts of interest as less than 1% of the studies of researchers disclosed the nature of their funding; in addition, concluding with “bias is difficult to detect and appraise” (2006).
Many of these issues are also found in research on sport and recreation; often disability is not included as a variable; when it is included, sample groups are small and different disabilities are within the sample; it is often difficult to obtain a random group; and the focus sometimes is on sport performance not the individual disability. Cludd also found that there still was a publication bias in that positive findings were more frequently published.(13) In the social sciences, there is a tendency to present `feel good` results about sport linked to a number of factors including the following: researchers often love sport themselves and very often find these activities do have a positive impact on fitness/health and social aspects; there is the hope to support or continue programmes and funding; and there can be slanted results as often those who have a negative experiences in sport drop out and are not included in the survey group.
Also, in spite of abandonment of the medical model, there is also a push to medicalisation in the field of mental disability tied to psychological and emotional behaviour as distinct from intellectual disability (Reaume, 2000). There are ongoing battles in 2011 over the forthcoming DSM – 5 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders related to definitions of autism and the classification of disabling depressive disorders.(14) Medical diagnosis is particularly important to many persons classified as disabled, as a medical label allows access to resources and support that are otherwise unavailable and is an area in need of further research as many families battle in the worlds of medicine and insurance to obtain financial and other resources.
Areas of study

- Chris Bell (2010) states that he may `un-nerve many in Disability Studies” and his actions may seem “impolitic and offensive” (p381), but he argues that at this time, Disability Studies should be called White Disability Studies (p374) because of the omission of people of colour. Despite the fact that people of colour outnumber white people in the world, “white people harbour hegemony and cultural capital” (p378).
  Lauff`s excellent analysis of the participation rates at the Paralympic Games, Deaflympics and Special Olympics shows differential participation rates by country, region and gender and the north-south divide and is a very useful resource for additional research (2007; 2011).(15)
- There are fewer females in sport in the Paralympic Games, even though the IPC has worked hard globally to change this. Cultural beliefs about gender appropriate behaviour restricts opportunities to what has been a western based international sport competition (Jiwani & Rail, 2010; Parker, 2009). `Muslim feminists` also lobby for greater sensitivity towards the issue of Islamic dress (hijab) in Muslim countries and in countries with Muslim minorities, as well as support for sex segregation in sport for Muslim women, as the Islamic Women`s Games based in Iran have grown in popularity since 1995 (Limoochi and Le Clair, 2011). Some argue for support of the International Declaration for Muslim Women “Accept and Respect” (Benn & Koushkie-Jahromi, 2008) while others are dismayed about the ongoing gender inequities in all aspects of sport (Fasting and Brackenbridge, 2008). There is a gap in the literature from researchers in Muslim countries as unfortunately often there are challenges to obtain funding, conduct research and travel and publication restrictions.
- Other research builds on the work of Adrienne Rich and her critique of the social pressures for compulsory heterosexuality and assumptions about sexual orientation, while McRuer (2010) argues for a merging of the critical queer/disabled to deconstruct the idealisation of the able and the heterosexual. Barounis (2010) also contributes with a critique of the historical linkages between masculinity, queerness and disability, and the oversight of disabled women.(16) In addition, it is to be hoped that there will be greater attention paid to transgendered sport and issues of gender.
- Technology has transformed people`s everyday lives globally and the Paralympic Games. In the 1990s, administrators had to photocopy manuals and guidelines whereas today the internet, websites and email, texting and twitter have transformed communication. In the same way, the merging of technology and the body is an important issue for both those with and without disabilities as the traditional separation of the `artificial` `cyborg` body and the `natural` body has become blurred (Norman & Moola, 2011). Transplant Games are a reality and the cell phone has become an extension of the body. Electronic miniaturisation and design innovation limits have been pushed within the body itself, and with sport equipment.

Conclusion
Dis/ability – mobility and the senses should be used as a variable in research, in addition to the expected gender, age, socio-economic/class, ethnicity/race variables and sexual orientation to reflect the reality of diverse humanity instead of the assumed `normalcy`. The field of disability and the Paralympic Games provide many opportunities to challenge traditional perspectives and break new ground in an area where contests often take place in public spaces of the sporting arena and where a number of research areas can be examined or critiqued. Bias-free or inclusive research is reframing thinking about disability and there are many areas of research tied to the Paralympic Games and some of these are questioning methodology, `whiteness` in Critical Disability Studies`, Muslim women in sport, the `modified` technological body and the ethics of disability research. It is hoped that disability will increasingly become addressed outside of the work of disability specialists and this issue of the Bulletin will encourage current and future scholars to explore these issues further.
Notes
(1) Highlighting accessibility issues during the Athens Games in 2004, Jeff Adams climbed the Parthenon in his wheelchair, and Sir Philip Craven demonstrated to the press how inaccessible blocked sidewalks without cuts were for people in wheelchairs. At the Beijing Games in 2008, the Chinese government announced inclusive and support programs in education, rehabilitation and housing for the 83 million disabled in the country reflecting a shift to an inclusive approach.
(2) This has been much challenged and now disability itself is seen to “an unstable category” (Davis, 2010b).
(3) The infrequent attention and devaluing of ASL, Deaf Culture and the hard of hearing and Deaf communities (HHD) Lane has called audism (1992).
(4) I am indebted to Prince’s contribution as I struggled with the best descriptor to describe these omissions. Absent is a more powerful term than omission, because absent encapsulates the expectation that attendance is expected.
5) The barriers for disabled faculty will remain so long as accommodations are not made to recognise the time required to manage disability and the activities of daily living, and additional costs tied to work and research.
(6) In Canada, gender became a required component by the country’s major funding agencies such as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in 1985, with the publication of the guidelines outlined by Margrit Eichler in Sex as a Variable in Research.
(7) Language around disability can often provide insights into perceptions about the meaning of disability. Linton’s work reflected and pushed an awareness of language in North American and others have illustrated the cultural framing of disability in language and in policy in Korea (Kim, 2010) and in China (Sun et al, 2011).
(8) There has been some questioning of the term ‘bias free’ as some feel it is unrealistic or inaccurate to use the term bias-free research, but most would agree that holistic research that is more inclusive does lead to better research.
(9) Their BIAS II focus is on the methodological challenges of observational data related to surveys, longitudinal studies and small area data paying attention to non-responsiveness and the role of spatio-temporal factors. BIAS II has four main areas of focus by researchers from the UK and the USA: electoral behaviour, space-time patterns of criminal offences, measuring changes over time in small area estimates of income, unemployment and longitudinal studies of ageing-related changes in cognition and health. http://www.umdnj.edu/idsweb/shared/biases.htm
(10) There is also the issue of greater ethical animal awareness and the transition from seeing animals simply as pets and instead as animal companions within families (Hauch, 2011) and essential as working companions for those with disabilities.
(11) As in other countries, this concern was manifested in 2011 as the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights held hearings to find ways to support the participation of children and youth under 25 in sport and physical activity. Part of this concern is tied to increasing obesity numbers in Canada, USA, UK and Europe.
(12) However, even in larger quantitative studies there are bias and methodological challenges as seen recently in the USA and Canada in the light of the predictive failures of commercial polling for elections. Allan Greg, the chair of one of Canada’s best known polling companies Harris-Decima pointed out the polling sample problems in the 2011 national election were tied to methodology (i.e. dwindling phone land lines skew results) and that polling is in a period of “transition.” Ipsos-Reid had the most accurate results, but CEO Darrell Bricker argued that relying on the “so-called random sample” is not enough and that coverage was a challenge (The Problem with Polling, 2011).
(13) Cludd argues that it might be reluctance on the part of researchers rather than the reluctance on the part of journals to publish negative results (2006).
(14) The DSM – 5 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders will be the new and fifth manual to be published in 2013 and there has been considerable debate about the grief exclusion criterion and its relationship to Major Depressive Disorder diagnosis.
(15) 146 countries participated in the 2008 Beijing Summer Paralympic Games and 44 in the 2010 Winter Games with athletes primarily from countries of the north. Geography, climate and the lack of resources in low and middle income countries are part of the difference in participation rates.
(16) Barounis examines the male body in the 2006 movies Murderball and Brokeback Mountain.
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Le Clair, J. M. (2009) Sport and health: global challenges to biomedical definitions of disability. Vis-à-Vis: Explorations in Anthropology (9) 2, 203-219.
Le Clair, J. M. (ed) (2012). Disability in the Global Sport Arena: A Sporting Chance. London: Routledge.
Le Clair, J. M. (2012a). Transformed identity: from disabled person to global Paralympian. In Disability in the Global Sport Arena: A Sporting Chance. J.M. Le Clair (ed.) London: Routledge.
Legg, D. & Gilbert, K. (eds) (2010). Paralympic Legacies. Victoria, Australia: CommonGround Publishers.
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Contact
Professor Dr. Jill M. Le Clair
Founding Chair of the Global Disability Research in Sport and Health Network
Humber College Institute
Toronto, Canada
Email: jill.leclair@sympatico.ca

Positioning the Paralympic Games in Liquid Modernity
Natalie Campbell
Moving on from Postmodernity
The Postmodern era and its accompanying theories have been around for nearly half a century, and gradually, over time, academics have moved past the utilisation of postmodernist theory towards an era of `post – Post modernity`, or a state of modern living which has gradually evolved and which Polish sociologist Bauman first coined as the era of `liquid modernity` (Bauman, 2000).
Along with this shift in theoretical thinking over the last decade, disability discourse within the social sciences has increasingly focused on the relationship between impairment, society and postmodernism, where postmodern theory is referenced to challenge the division between disability and able-bodiedness (Solis, 2004). The works of seminal Postmodern theorists such as Foucault, Lyotard and Baudrilland have been deconstructed, applied and analysed to provide alternative vantage points on the cultural generation of disability and the significance of impairment in today`s society (Thomas, 2004). Furthermore, some writings pertaining to the accord of postmodernism and disability have provided platforms for pushing forward the increased importance of recognising academic work undertaken within the Paralympic movement, which do not focus solely on the previous constraints of the medical and social models of disability sport that often galvanised work in this area. However, despite disability studies in Britain being enriched by this growing presence of perspectives and issues that have challenged the materialist prioritisation of the economic roots of disability, the increased use of the application of the Postmodern movement has become almost common place within the area of disability studies.
Bauman`s work has no explicit connection to Disability Studies, but his sensitivity to modern patterns of exclusion and `othering` provide not only a useful template to think through the relationship between modernity and disability, but also a useful corrective to the tendency in United Kingdom (UK) disability studies to ignore the `cultural turn` (Hughes, 2002). Although Bauman`s theory of liquid modernity is still in relatively embryonic stages in relation to disability discourse, the arguments it presents on contemporary society should perhaps be considered when assessing the place of the Paralympic Games (and Paralympic athletes) in today`s modern state.
Liquid Times
The present day situation of a `Liquid Modernity` emerged out of the `radical melting of the fetters and manacles suspected of limiting the individual freedom to choose and act` (Bauman, 2000). However, as Bauman argues, this liberalisation and deregulation of control has led to a continuous uncertainty of the `order` in which one should live one`s life and, additionally, the worth a society places on that order. A central concept to Bauman`s work is the reflection that modern civilisation no longer tasks rational and logical order as a method of naming and classifying function, more that function itself is based upon how useful or purposeful a given thing or person is at that very moment in time – what is it`s physical and metaphysical value? Although not its primary objective, this new method of ordering (objects and subjects) to fulfil the perceived required functions of the society inadvertently consists of the acts of including and excluding, separating and segregating, to structure and divide the society into necessary, purpose serving classifications – that which serves a purpose and that which does not. These classifications, according to Bauman (2005), are ultimately the result of “the consumerist syndrome where everything is speed, excess and waste” (p.84(1)). The sociology of Bauman (1999) demonstrated that the modern dream of an ordered society ended up (re)producing it`s opposite, that is more ambivalence – a society where changes to the prescribed `order` are so rapid and continuous that it`s members are forced to live in a temporal existence, a precarious life lived under conditions of constant uncertainty – essentially a `liquid life`. What is left is an unfixed – unfixable – society, struggling between the desire for freedom and the need for security (Bauman, 2005). In liquid modernity, the individual must act, plan actions and calculate the likely gains and losses of acting (or failing to act) under conditions of pathological uncertainty. Knowing this, what place then, do the modern Paralympic Games hold in a society which demands such immediate and valuable usefulness from all that desire (or need) to belong to it? How valuable are they and what purpose are they serving in our consumerist society?
The Fluidity of the Paralympic Games
The modern Paralympic Games provide much debate and discourse within many disciplines of academic research. It has been well documented that the Paralympic Games are perceived as a lesser event to the Olympic Games. Weed and Dowse (2009) discuss the complete lack of a transparent, relevant and sustainable legacy plan for the 2012 Paralympic Games, whilst Landry (1995) highlights the “patient struggle of disabled athletes the world over for full social acceptance, integration and recognition”. Authors such as Ellis (2009), Gold and Gold (2007) and Kell, Kell and Price (2008) have all commented on the distinct differences between the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games, notably the differences in media coverage, the representation of the disabled athletes in the media and the lack of national support (both from the spectators and the NGBs) when compared to able bodied athletes. Knowing this, one must question the situation – what is it about the Paralympic Games that fails to demand it be treated with the same economic and social interest as its counterpart?
Bauman might argue that the `problem` the Paralympic Games have is that they offer nothing of value to the majority (my emphasis) of society – they offer no tangible worth. By no means is this a reflection on the liquid modern society`s attitudes towards the disabled community as a whole, indeed the liquid modern society views the Paralympic athlete as belonging to their mantra – productive, independent, being socially viable and able to participate in the consumer game. Because the liquid modern society is only hostile to those not able to calculate their own advantages, Paralympic athletes are not (yet) excluded from the ranks of serving a purpose. The Paralympic Games on the other hand are not so self-sufficient and adaptable, and the sum of the Games is not actually greater than, nor even equal to the sum of its parts (being the athletes). Perceived by most as a subordinate, immature, supplementary yet paradoxically mandatory event, the Paralympic Games has failed to capture the assumed needs of an all consuming society. Many could argue that the reasons for this are multifaceted, such as, forever being in the shadow of the Olympic Games; rigidity within the governing agencies; cultural misrepresentation of value – however, the liquid modern society does not care to hear about `excuses` pertaining to the current predicament, nor does it care for reasons of why something cannot change. Quite simply, if something cannot or will not adapt, the liquid society simply leaves the situation in its wake, redundant and wasteful.
Over the last two decades, the Paralympic Games have remained relatively stagnant in their attempts to progress simultaneously with the forever forward bounding leaps of the Olympic Games. The occasional re-branding (the odd splash of colour, the re-working of less demeaning tag lines etc.) has perhaps failed to seduce the members of such a complex, critical and accelerated society. Corporations (and most cynics) would argue that the case is simply one of economics – the potential gains from the commercialisation of the Paralympic Games does not equal that of the resources invested, and so is best left to remain as an event which is recognised as fundamentally worthwhile, but not one that will satiate the consumer demands. This situation creates a problem for the future of the Paralympic Games.
Media Fluidity
In 2010, the BBC received heavy criticism for its lack of live coverage of the 2010 Winter Paralympic Games (a one hour highlight show in comparison to 160 hours of live coverage of the able bodied Olympic Games), in which it cited `budget restrictions` as its primary argument. It does not enamour the worth of the Paralympic Games when an apparently impartial, mainly government funded, not for commercial profit organisation such as the BBC considers the Paralympic Games to be less of a celebration of elite sports performance and more of a financial constraint heavy with moral and ethical burden. However, the winning of the 2012 Games host city bid dramatically altered the landscape of sport in general (from physical education in schools to grass roots level up to high performance sport) and the entire commercial and non-commercial sector were required to demonstrate their fluidity to this new, and exceptionally profitable, shift in consumer interest in the Olympic, and to a much lesser extent the Paralympic Games. It is not surprising then that the rights to cover the 2012 Paralympic Games were put out to tender by the London Olympic Games Organising Committee (LOCOG) in January 2010. The bid was won by Channel 4, who despite having a only a small portfolio of live sporting events, recognised that the steady increase in viewers of the Paralympic Games (13.3 million in 2008 compared to 10.8 million in 2000(2)) was an indication that a shift in the economic value of the Paralympic Games is perhaps on the horizon.
Channel 4, to their credit, have built a strong reputation as a broadcaster which embraces opportunities to provide alternative, informed, representative and at times controversial programming. Due to this, its interest in broadcasting the Paralympic Games could be viewed differently from the `liquid modern`s theory` which attempts to devalue all human behaviour to mere triggers of consumer need. Each year, Channel 4 invest £200,000 to improve training and support initiatives within the company which allow the disabled community better access to work with the channel`s key programming staff, be this in front of or behind the camera, as well as attempting to “explore disability in new and surprising ways, to generate a wider debate of disability issues and bring new audiences to the subject”(3). To fully demonstrate their commitment to the Paralympic Games, Channel 4 is currently showing its second series of `That Paralympic Show` – a 30 minute programme where its most popular presenters, along with ex-Paralympian Ade Adepitan and cameos from other Olympians, where we are encouraged to meet with current Paralympians of Great Britain and try their hand at the various Paralympic sports. The show is light hearted and screened at a prime time in the Sunday morning slot of T4 (a morning show with a target age-range of 16-34) and ensures the broadcaster`s policy of `normalising` disability is thoroughly overseen. Is a move such as this really as consumerist and economically shepherded as Bauman would have us believe? Undoubtedly, and unfortunately, he would argue yes. Regardless of whether the pessimist or the optimist is walking, the path they walk and the debates they proffer all arrive at the same realisation – regardless of the intention, by introducing and increasing the access to Channel 4`s commercial media outlets to an underrepresented group (within both sport and television) the London 2012 Paralympic Games are serving a purpose to Channel 4, and a purpose should always have an accompanying commodity.
Liquid Heroism
Whether it is argued as fortunately or unfortunately, the Paralympic Games is yet to shed its guise of heroism, with the word `hero` being thrust upon the athletes so frequently that it`s meaning has become depreciative and standardised. Paralympic athletes are highly praised and largely encouraged, yet often their sporting achievements are portrayed as being of a lesser worth than those of able bodied athletes (Nixon, 2007) and are seldom recognised as individuals(4), but more of a collective group with a singular identity. Indeed, the aporia of identity within a liquid society is one that Bauman questions heavily, calling it both a problem and a task for individuality and collectivity alike. The notion of individuality continuously ricochets between a person`s desires for freedom but need for belonging.
In times of Liquid Modernity, the Paralympic Games is held in superficial regard as a propitious yet compulsory sporting event for those who, despite their imposed segregation, have refused to become the dregs of society, determined not to be waste, nor to be wasted. Paralympic Athletes are not to be excluded from the liquid society`s normal way of life because, regardless of impairment, they have not been socially defined, nor self-defined, as `blemished, defective, faulty and deficient – in other words, inadequate – consumers` (Bauman, 1988: p38). It is assumed by many (although those in high performance disability sport could argue otherwise) that the Paralympic athlete can afford their mortgage, buy their clothes, pay their taxes and contribute to the economical functioning of society, and so the Paralympic Games fulfils the moral consumer rights and the virtuous consumer needs that liquid society has (at present) to reward such a laudable group of people. Unfortunately for the Games, many will argue that the Paralympic Games do not provide a realistic representation of the impaired individual – the image of the strong, healthy, determined, self reliant Paralympian has become the bench mark image that liquid society has placed against the disabled community, providing an unrealistic representation of the functionality of a disabled individual. The Paralympic Games sells this image that disabled people are fit for purpose – able and operative. However, the Paralympic Games, and indeed some academic literature, fails to distinguish and take into account the physical, social, economical and political differences between an impaired individual and someone who is profoundly disabled. Taking into account the abundant differences between the Olympic and the Paralympic Games in terms of funding, media coverage, spectator support and athlete services, the Paralympic Games are still held in high regard as a major sporting event that embraces the courage and commitment of a select group of individuals. Why then, it could be asked, is the same accolade not granted to the Special Olympics? Hughes (2010) uses Bauman`s work as a departure point to explore the growing concepts of invalidation and exclusion of the disabled person within a postmodern society. However, if at the core of Bauman`s work is the notion of the consumerist syndrome within modern day society then (despite the increasing gap between modernity and morality) there comes a juncture at which an individual`s impairment prevents them from being useful – they require more from the public than they can invest. There is a sharp difference in ability, and market appeal, between an athletic war veteran with a single leg - below the knee amputee and a man of the same age with severe congenital cerebral palsy, unable to speak or bathe himself. The Special Olympics then has no market-orientated definition of social viability. The difference in the intrinsic and extrinsic gains, from the individual to the collective society, between the Olympic Games, the Paralympic Games and the Special Olympics are vast and varied. The crux of the matter is that the more seemingly socially and economically viable the situation, the more the Liquid Modern population temporarily embrace it.
The Place of the Paralympic Games in Times of Liquid Modernity
For now at least, the Paralympic Games are fashionable, accessible and most importantly, appear useful. Liquid Life casts the world as objects of consumption: that is, “objects that lose their usefulness (and so their lustre, attraction, seductive power and worth) in the course of being used” (Bauman, 2005, p8). The 2012 Paralympic Games has the rare advantage of being a commodity that knows its shelf life, which will keep its allure until at least August 2012, however, it is unclear as to what role the Games will play once the closing ceremony falls silent and the athletes disappear from the public eye. The consuming life is, indeed, a game of snakes and ladders; the roads travel from the bottom to the top, and even more so from the top to the bottom, are abominably short. Aforementioned ex-Paralympian Ade Adepitan is currently riding the coat-tails of the surge of interest in the 2012 Paralympic Games, having even relinquished competing for a place in the Great Britain 2012 Wheelchair Basketball Team to focus on his media career. Whether a victim or an ideal of the Liquid Life, Adepitan is conscious of his need to be flexible, adaptable and useful (especially within the media eye) and to not let his Paralympic status define him. Piore and Sabel (1984) were ahead of their time in predicting what has now become known as `flexible specialisation`; a strategy of permanent innovation with a favourable accommodation to ceaseless change, rather than imposing any attempt to control it. The Paralympic Games will need to wait until after the 2012 event to know if they have fallen out of favour with the British Public or if Channel 4 will continue its show of solidarity to the disabled athlete, or in terms of funding if the value of a 2012 Gold Paralympic Medal has the same net worth as one won in Rio in 2016?
For the moment at least, the Paralympic Games is experiencing a swell in commercial interest and has done well to align itself with current, contemporary media partners which can maximise its overall market price. The test of the Paralympic Game`s position within this liquid life will be to see its metamorphosis post-2012, especially in the case of Paralympics GB. With the 2016 Paralympic Games being 5½ years and 5000 miles away, the Paralympic Games must continuously recycle its identity to remain valuable within this consumerist life. In the words of Bauman himself “the true stake in the race is (temporary) rescue from being excluded to the ranks of the destroyed and avoid being condemned to waste” (2005, p.3) and for now at least, the Paralympic Games have been temporarily rescued.
Notes
(1) For a more detailed account of Bauman’s thoughts on how Liquid Modernity is governed by consumerism see “Liquid Life” by Z. Bauman (2005), Oxford: Polity
(2) Bushfield, S. 2010., Channel4 to show Paralympics 2012, The Guardian, 8th January, 4b
(3) Channel 4 website: http://www.channel4.com/4disabledtalent
(4) Research published by LOCOG indicated that 69% of those interviewed could not name a Paralympic athlete (GB or otherwise). http://www.paralympics.org.uk/show_news.asp?itemid=2152&itemTitle=Research+reveals+a+positive+attitude+towards+the+Paralympic+Games&section=000100010006&sectionTitle=News

References
Bauman, Z. (1988) Freedom. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Bauman, Z. (1998). In Search of Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity.
Bauman, Z. (2005). Liquid Life. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Ellis, K. (2009). Beyond the Aww! factor: Human interest profiles of Paralympians and the media navigation of physical difference and social stigma. Asia Pacific Media Educator, 19 (2): pp 23-35.
Gold, J. R. & Gold, M. M. (2007). Access for all: the rise of the Paralympic Games. The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, 127(3): pp133-141.
Hughes, B. (2002). Bauman`s Strangers: Impairment and the invalidation of disabled people in modern and post-modern cultures. Disability and Society, 17(5), pp 571 – 584.
Kell, P., Kell., M. & Price, N. (2008). Two games and one movement? The Paralympics and the Olympic Movement. Available at: (http:// ro.uow.edu.au/edupapers/37). (accessed on 12th April 2011).
Nixon, H. L. (2007). Constructing Diverse Sports Opportunities for People With Disabilities. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 31 (4): pp 417 – 433.
Piore, M. J., & Sabel, C. F. (1984). The Second Industrial Divide. New York: Basic Books.
Solis, S. (2004). The disability making factory: Manufacturing “differences” through children`s books. Disability Studies Quarterly, 24 (1), pp 315 – 319.
Thomas, C. (2004). Disability Theory: Key ideas, issues and concepts. In C. Barnes, M. Oliver & L. Barton `Disability Studies Today`. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, pp 38 – 54.
Weed, M. & Dowse, S. (2009). A missed opportunity waiting to happen? The social legacy potential of the London 2012 Paralympic Games. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 1(2): pp 170 – 174.
Contact
Natalie Campbell
University of East London
London, United Kingdom
Email: n.campbell@uel.ac.uk

The 2012 Cultural Olympiad and Paralympic Games: An Opportunity to Challenge the Archetypal, Stereotypes of Disability for Good?
Athanasios (Sakis) Pappous & Julia Jeyacheya

Introduction
In less than 24 months, the Paralympic Games, allegedly, the second biggest sporting event in the world sport arena and across the world will visit London and provide a unique opportunity to raise awareness and challenge stereotypes of disability which we find in our community.
Along with this the Cultural Olympiad programme forms part of the logic of equalitarian management between the two mega-sport events, the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Indeed, among the proposals that emerged from the IOC 2000 Commission, was recommendation 15 which proposed the formalisation of stronger ties between the IOC and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). As a result, nowadays Paralympic and Olympic athletes perform in the same stadiums, are hosted in the same Olympic Village and there is the same organising committee for both events (Pappous, Marcellini & de Leseleuc, 2011). The parallels between the Olympic and Paralympic Games is also reflected in the celebration of a common Cultural Olympiad.
This programme of events and festivals has evolved over the last century from being a competitive Olympic Art programme where artists competed for bronze, silver and gold medals concurrently with the Olympic sports events. The first competitive art programme was held during the Stockholm Summer Olympics in 1912. By 1952, the decision to replace the Olympic Arts programme with non-competitive cultural exhibitions and events successfully promoted greater links between Olympic sports and art. Interestingly, this was the same year the Paralympic Games was transformed into an international event.
The present Cultural Olympiad is thus a programme of national and regional cultural events and festivals inspired by De Coubertin`s vision for the Olympics to encourage a symbiosis between sport and art, and enthusiastically delivered by the nations and regions Creative Programmers.
The closing ceremonies of the XIXX Olympic and XIV Paralympic Games marked the start of the London Cultural Olympiad; the most ambitious pre-Games cultural programme since its formalisation at the XXV Summer Games. From the Barcelona Summer Olympic Games in 1992 to the Beijing Games in 2008, host cities have focused the Cultural Olympiad events and activities around the host city; London has chosen to extend this to a nationwide programme that is to be: “.....the largest in the history of the Games” (Lander & Crowe, 2010, p. 35). The intention is for all regions to have the opportunity to participate in cultural activities that are inspired by the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, but shaped by regional identities, traditions and cultures. The West Midlands, for example, are showcasing their multicultural communities by combining dance with Bollywood, while the South East are celebrating their Paralympic legacy with an on-going series of disabled and Deaf sport and art events. The Cultural Olympiad therefore is not only to celebrate the Games but to strengthen community pride and cohesion through regionally inspired small and large-scale events.
The Cultural Olympiad offers a unique opportunity for disabled artists to obtain funding in order to celebrate the inspiration of the Olympic and Paralypmic Games, and produce inclusive, artistic performance made by disabled artists themselves. This will be a clear contribution to a long-time claim of the Disability Rights Movement who have promoted the slogan “Nothing about us without us”, referring to the argument that no social decision should be made about a group of society without the participation of the members of that group (Charlton, 1998). As part of this aim, the largest United Kingdom (UK) programme of arts, sport and culture commissions by Deaf and disabled people is supported predominantly by the Olympic Lottery Distributor, through a £3million fund. Collaborative efforts among Deaf and disabled artists, alongside non-disabled artists, through Unlimited, draws on a social model and so eliminates those constraints typically associated with physical disability, and the stereotypes that are evident in today`s society. An example of an `Unlimited project` is the Candoco Dance Company where disabled choreographers are commissioned to produce large-scale dance pieces for both disabled and non-disabled dancers for the final year`s celebrations.
By encouraging networking and collaboration through cultural events and festivals, the potential to challenge and dispel the archetypal stereotypes of disability for good are very real. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG`s) ambition to use the Paralympic Games to “change public attitudes towards disability, celebrate the excellence of Paralympic sport and to enshrine from the very outset that the two Games are an integrated whole” (Lord Coe, LOCOG President). These sentiments are echoed in regional Cultural Olympiad programmes around the UK, but perhaps more so in the South East of England whose Paralympic legacy has served as a catalyst for collaboration between disabled and non-disabled artists, sports people and local communities.
On paper, the rationale and proposed outcomes of the Cultural Olympiad and Paralympic Games favour the opportunity for building social capital, however there are a number of barriers that serve to challenge the extent of that success. For the purpose of this paper, only two constraints are identified and discussed further.
The mass media: Paralympic Games and the Cultural Olympiad
The mass media play a fundamental role in the transmission of prevailing cultural values and in the production and reproduction of social representations. The Paralympic Games have, until now, received limited and biased coverage (Pappous et al., 2011). This is also true of the Cultural Olympiad (Garcia & Miah, 2007).
Barnes (1992) noted that popular cultural images of disability perpetuate negative stereotypes and that this negativity persists partly because it is constantly reproduced through the media. This negative portrayal of disabled people in culture has been evident in films and other creative industries where disabled people are frequently cast as the villain, and ironically, rarely cast to play the disabled character, such as in Forrest Gump or Rain Man. According to Barnes (1992) categorisation of stereotypical depictions, the media frequently depict people with disabilities as: pitiable and pathetic, an object of violence, sinister or evil, curios, super cripple, object of ridicule, as their own worst and only enemy, a burden, sexually abnormal, or incapable of participating fully in community life and as “ordinary” people who just happen to have impairments.
One could think that the involvement with sport could liberate people with disabilities from the stereotypical depiction as described above, however Pappous and colleagues (2011; in press) concluded that disability sport is marginalised and trivialised in most newspapers. In relation to the coverage of disability sport, the use of language and terminology by newspaper journalists reaffirms traditional, medicalised views of the disabled (Thomas & Smith, 2003; Schantz & Gilbert, 2001) without acknowledging the socio-genetic dimensions of disability (Barnes, 1992). This results in further strengthening negative attitudes toward the disabled (Deleseleuc et al., 2010). These studies illustrate the presence of severe bias in the representation of disabled athletes by editors, journalists and photographers.
According to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Office for Disability Issues, one way to influence attitudes and society`s perceptions of disabled people is by “promoting inclusion and disability equality through the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and its programmes.” (DCMS) As has already been mentioned, the Paralympic Games, until now, has received limited coverage from media, however there are strong expectations that the parallel event of the Cultural Olympiad that will accompany the 2012 Paralympic Games will mark a turning point and will offer an exceptional platform to powerfully demonstrate an alternative, positive profile of achievements of disabled people.
These high expectations are based, on one hand, on the high expected numbers of media journalist that have expressed their interest to report on the Games. More than 10 000 press and media journalists from around the world will cover a mega-sport event in which 4 200 Paralympic athletes will participate. It is worth mentioning that it will be the very first time that a commercial channel (Channel 4) will broadcast the Games, offering widespread media coverage that will include 150 hours of television coverage, and running its biggest ever marketing campaign to promote the Games. It is hoped that not only the Games will attract more media coverage, but also the Cultural Olympiad creative events linked to the Paralympic Games. Kevin Lygo, Channel 4`s Director of Television and Content, stated that: “We are genuinely thrilled to be given this opportunity to work with LOCOG to bring Paralympic sport into full public focus before, during and beyond the 2012 Games and to deliver a lasting legacy, including altering public attitudes to disability and disability sport” (Carter, 2010).
On the other hand, it is not only the increased interest of the media but also the long and strong tradition that the Paralympic movement has in UK that makes many people think that the 2012 Paralympic Games will offer an exceptional platform to powerfully demonstrate an alternative, positive profile of achievements of disabled people. The Paralympic Games were `born` in the UK, with the Games forerunner`, the Stoke Mandeville Games, being held in England until becoming an international event in 1952. Thus, the Cultural Olympiad associated with the 2012 Games offers an ideal context, in terms of place and time, and provides a well-timed unique opportunity to promote a positive and empowering media portrayal of disabled people, a community group that has been both underrepresented and misrepresented in mass media.
The expected effects of a `unique atmosphere`
The `unique atmosphere` that is generated from small and large-scale events and festivals is a guaranteed phenomenon that engenders `community spirit`, encourages social cohesion and changes attitudes (Picard & Robinson, 2006; Chalip, 2006). Furthermore, the `atmosphere` generated from events challenges our social norms and distinctions by creating a liminoid space (in which ordinary social roles are suspended) (Chalip, 2006), thus reducing inhibitions and encouraging participation in a new activity or socialising outside usual peer groups. Reference to liminality can be found within various 2012 Games and Legacy reports however the more manageable term `higher plane` is used instead, indicating that the phenomenon arising from festivals and events is recognised as a valuable and known outcome with the potential to carry forward the momentum into the legacy or post event period.
These short-term changes in behaviour and attitude can therefore translate into lifelong changes but only under certain conditions. Time is essential if networking and relationships are to develop into robust, mutually-beneficial partnerships. Without this, those short term gains will remain as such. Having said that, relationships can only truly flourish if the mechanisms that promote them are understood, and monitored over time. This presents the second barrier for consideration in this paper.
Difficulties in measuring the intangible social benefits of the Cultural Olympiad and the Paralympic Games
Intangible social benefits are inherently difficult to measure and subsequently remain as anecdotal reference points that serve to humanise strategy documents and press releases with an emotional `feel-good` factor. Unlike tangible social benefits such as increased employment and training, the intangible outcomes are not evidenced in annual government statistics at all, or fully researched within the context of the Cultural Olympiad or the Paralympic Games. Without the means to measure, monitor and record these benefits over time, there is limited scope to learn and build on those critical success factors that achieve long term change in people`s attitudes and behaviour to disability.
One of few studies that does attempt to measure the intangible social benefits is that from Pappous et al (2011). By measuring the media coverage of the Paralympic Games, the research concluded that the Paralympic Games had a long-term effect on the media coverage of disability sport, not only during the Games but also four years later. The impact of continued media exposure well into the legacy period has the potential to act as a `substitute` catalyst once the Games is over, and could help to convert temporary changes in behaviour and attitude in to lifelong changes.
The 2012 Cultural Olympiad and Paralympic Games should influence the direction for future Games by providing a blueprint that successfully challenges the stereotypes associated with disability. It could even be argued that the UK is in the best position to achieve this goal however, until the Games are concluded the actual long term impact of the nation and region wide Cultural Olympiad remains unknown."
References
Barnes, C. (1992). Disabling Imagery and the Media: An exploration of the principles for media representations of disabled people. Belper: British Council of Organisation for Disabled People.
Carter, P. (2010). Channel 4 to broadcast 2012 Paralympics; BBC. Available at: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/london_2012/8448236.stm). (accessed 20th April 2011).
Chalip, L. (2006). Towards social leverage of sport events. Journal of Sport & Tourism Vol 11 (2) pp109-127.
Charlton, J. I. (1998). Nothing about us without us: Disability oppression and empowerment. Berkeley: University of California Press.
DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport). Winning; A tourism strategy for 2012 and beyond.
de Leseleuc, E., Pappous, A., & Marcellini, A. (2010). The media coverage of female athletes with disability. Analysis of the daily press of four European countries during the 2000 Sydney Paralympic Games. European Journal for Sport and Society, Vol 7 (3): 283-296.
Garcia, B. G. (2002). The Concept of Olympic Cultural Programmes: Origins, evolution and projection; university lecture on the Olympics [online article] Barcelona Centre d`Estudis Olimpics (UAB); International Chair in Olympism (IOC_UAB) Available at: (http://olmpicstudies.uab.es/lectures/web/pdf/garcia.pdf). (accessed 29th April 2011).
Garcia, B. G. & Miah, A. (2007). Ever Decreasing Circles? The Profile of Culture at the Olympics. Culture @ the Olympics Vol 9 (2): 10-13.
Lander, D. & Crowe, R. (2010). Delivering a Cultural Olympiad: Vancouver 2010 meets London 2012, Culture @ the Olympics Vol 12 (7): 35-46.
Pappous, A., Marcellini, A. & de Leseleuc, E. (2011). From Sydney to Beijing: the evolution of the photographic coverage of Paralympic Games in five European countries. Sport in Society, Vol 14 (3): 345–354.
Pappous, A., de Leseleuc, E. & Marcellini, A. (2011, in press). Current and Future Directions for Research on the Media Coverage of Female Paralympic Athletes in the Global Sport Arena: A Review, Sport in Society.
Picard, D. & Robinson, M. (2006). Festivals, tourism and social change: remaking worlds. Channel View Publications.
Schantz, & Gilbert K. (2001). An Ideal Misconstrued: Newspaper Coverage of the Atlanta Paralympic Games in France and Germany, Sociology of Sport . Vol 18: 69–94.
Thomas, N. & Smith, A. (2003). Preoccupied with able-bodiedness? An analysis of the British media coverage of the 2000 Paralympic Games, Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly. Vol 20 (2): 166-181

Contact
Athanasios (Sakis) Pappous
The University of Kent
Canterbury, United Kingdom
Email: a.pappous@kent.ac.uk
Julia Jeyacheya
Canterbury Christ Church University
Canterbury, Kent
United Kingdom
Email: julialeslie@rocketmail.com

What is the Ideal Paralympic Sport System? Future Research Directions
David Legg, Veerle De Bosscher, Simon Shibli & Maartaen van Bottenburg
Introduction
The Paralympic Games were allegedly first held in 1960 in Rome with just over twenty countries and 400 athletes competing. More than fifty years later, London is preparing to host the 2012 Summer Paralympic Games with over 4000 athletes from 150 countries. The growth has been phenomenal and has been concomitant to an increase in competiveness of athletes and nations. Many nations now invest a considerable amount of time and money in their respective Paralympic sport systems with the hopes of enhancing national pride and glory. This of course has also happened, and arguably to a much greater extent and for a significantly longer period, within the able-bodied sport system. In this realm, some have gone so far as to refer to this as a global sporting arms race (Oakley & Green, 2001), of which the fundamental principle is that international sporting success can be produced by investing strategically in elite sport. Several nations have indeed shown that accelerated funding in elite sport can lead to an increase in medals won at the Olympic Games. Similar trends can be found in the Paralympic Games, as is evidenced by nations like the United Kingdom where investments between Sydney (2000) and Beijing (2008) raised by 300% with an increased market share of funding for Paralympic sport. This will increase further upwards to London 2012 from £30 million to £47 million. Many nations invest in Paralympic sports because they believe that success can be determined by human impact and policies (De Bosscher, De Knop & Van Bottenburg, 2007).
SPLISS
The challenge, for both able-bodied and disability sport systems, is knowing where to make investments that garner the highest rate of return, particularly as governments, which in many cases are the primary funder, are being asked to justify every dollar spent. The difficulty is that to date, there have been only a few internationally recognised models specific to the able-bodied sport system that allow sport managers and leaders to do this and thus more effectively increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their sport system. It was recognition of this absence that in 2002 led to the creation of a consortium of researchers from Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. After consortium members developed a framework for further study, other researchers were invited to participate from Norway, Italy and Canada. This larger group worked together with the goal of better understanding how sport policies could lead to international sporting success and was thus referred to as the SPLISS study (De Bosscher, Bingham, Shibli, van Bottenburg & De Knop, 2008). SPLISS is an acronym for Sport Policy factors Leading to International Sporting Success.

Theoretical model
The SPLISS group, lead by Professor Dr. Veerle de Bosscher from Vrije Universiteit Brussels in Belgium, conducted the pilot study where they developed a classification of factors leading to international sporting success. Three levels included those at the micro level (the athlete), the meso level (sports policies and politics) and macro level (cultural context). What became clear was that administrators, or sport leaders, were primarily able to influence those items at the meso level. Certainly, an impact could be made at the micro level such as altering training techniques and providing mental training but other factors such as genetics and social influences were not. At the macro level, potentially influential factors such as the economy, climate and population growth were outside the realm of the administrator`s influence.

Figure 1: Model showing the relationship between factors determining individual and national success (De Bosscher, De Knop, van Bottenburg and Shibli, 2006).
Taking into account all of the various factors that determine elite sports success, meso-level factors are the only ones that can be influenced and changed. Surprisingly, however, only a few studies have focused on organisational factors at this level. The lack of an empirically-grounded, coherent theory on the factors determining international sporting success therefore lies at the root of the SPLISS project. Based on the review of literature and the two data collections noted, a model was developed to better understand what factors lead to international sporting success. In this model, nine pillars were identified as key to this process. The nine pillars included financial support, an integrated approach to policy planning, participation in sport, talent identification and development, athletic and post career support, training facilities, coaching, international competitions and scientific research.

Figure 2: SPLISS model: a conceptual model of 9 pillars of Sports Policy factors Leading to International Sporting Success (De Bosscher et al., 2006).
Criteria or critical success factors (CSF) have been developed to operationalise the nine pillars into logically derived and measurable sub-components. 103 CSF have been included in this study to compare elite sport policies of six nations.
Methodology
Data were gathered in two ways. First, an overall policy questionnaire was circulated to the researchers in all participating nations, which contained 84 open-ended and closed questions on nine pillars. These questionnaires typically produced more than 30 pages of information per nation. Given that some features of successful nations as defined by Oakley and Green (2001) and Clumpner (1994) cannot easily be quantified, they were subjectively assessed by their primary users. A series of questionnaires was then used as the second data source. 1090 Athletes, 253 coaches and 63 sport administrators filled in written questionnaires on their overall sport system and the items that would impact an athlete`s ability to attain world class performances.
Results
This model was tested during a pilot study with the six member nations of the research consortium mentioned earlier. Each nation was then assessed in each of the pillars and critical success factors and noted against how they performed in international sports. The table below shows how each of the seven participating nations compared to each other. For more information about the methods used in this study, we refer to earlier publications (De Bosscher, De Knop, van Bottenburg, Shibli and Bingham, 2009; De Bosscher, Shibli, van Bottenburg, De Knop and Truyens, 2010).
Figure 3: SPLISS EVALUATION OF POLICY FACTORS (De Bosscher et al., 2008) Nations ordered by assessed ranking in Summer Olympic sports.
Overall, in Figure 3, there are relatively few areas in which there are significant variations between the sample nations. The study revealed that the countries with the highest absolute expenditures on elite sport and providing the highest elite sport funding for national sport organisations (pillar 1) (Italy, UK and the Netherlands) were also the most successful ones in Olympic Summer Games. On the other hand, the study contends that successful countries in international elite sport incorporate more of the key success factors than the unsuccessful countries, which indicates the probability that elite sport success is increasingly the result of investing in a blend of pillars. Moreover, Flanders and Wallonia . were perceived to have the least developed elite sport policies and, interestingly also perform below expectations in international competitions. Mainly four pillars (pillars 1 - 5 - 6 - partly 7) were identified as key areas in which the three most successful nations from the sample in Summer sports (Italy, UK and the Netherlands) have invested most. These areas can be identified as keys of effectiveness. Three under developed areas in most nations were also identified: talent identification and development systems, scientific research and coaches` provisions. Although the results are inconclusive on the input-throughput-output relation, it has offered an alternative way of approaching elite sport policies that may be further explored in future research.
A second way of assessing how each country faired was done by comparing the averages of the other participating nations using radar graphs. The example below shows Canada compared to the seven nations` average. It is important to note that Canada was not assessed for the categories of coaching and sport participation. Coaching was not reported due to the low response rate of coach`s surveys and participation due to the difficulties in ascertaining accurate measures of grassroots sport participation.
Figure 4: Radar on Graph for Canada.
While important and valuable, unfortunately even a thorough policy analysis such as the SPLISS study does not necessarily provide any obvious answers. Certainly more work is needed to understand how to better prepare Canada`s athletes for international competition and hopefully this benchmark study will provide the critical first step.
Today, the second iteration of this study has begun, this time with 15 nations participating and with a proposed end date of data collection being November 15th 201. If you are interested in participating or learning more about this study you are encouraged to contact the lead researcher Dr. Veerle De Bosscher at vdebossc@vub.ac.be.
Towards a theoretical model of Sports Policy factors Leading to International Paralympics Success
How then does this study link to the topic of this special issue of the ICSPPE Journal? For President of the Canadian Paralympic Committee, David Legg, who is one of the co-authors of this paper and Canadian researcher for both the first and second SPLISS studies, gaining a better understanding of what factors lead to success for sport and more specifically, Paralympic sport, is of great interest. Like the able-bodied sport system, there are few, if any, models that would articulate what leads to international sporting success. A recent press clipping from the Australian Paralympic Committee titled “Will Australia Remain a Paralympic Power?” noted that several nations posed a threat to the Aussie`s long term medal standing at Summer Paralympic Games (Mannion, 2011). Of the countries listed, Canada was not one. What then does Canada need to do in order to reach the top five, or, as the Canadian Paralympic Committee has recently proclaimed as an aim, become the world`s leading Paralympic nation?
The Canadian Paralympic Committee has recently gone through a strategic planning process identifying the goal of becoming the World`s leading Paralympic nation. Four targets have been identified as being imperative in reaching this goal:

- Enhance Podium Performances at Paralympic Games;
- Build a World-class Paralympic Sport System and encourage people with a disability to engage in sport and recreation;
- Create a Sustainable Business Model;
- Expand the Awareness of Paralympic Sport and Build the Paralympic Brand.

Where we now find ourselves is trying to assess where we are at for each and attempting to decipher how and where we need to focus our energies to achieve our ultimate goal. The premise of this paper is then to suggest that perhaps a similar study needs to take place among Paralympic nations to best understand what pillars are necessary for international success. It is certainly one of the plans for future research of the SPLISS group.
Because of a lack of existing theories on the sport policy factors leading to Paralympic success, the next of this paper part suggests how and in what direction the SPLISS model may be applied to disability sport, and what pillars may be important and relevant.
The first pillar is financial support and here it was recognised that for those nations succeeding in international sport, they required a basic level of support, which typically came from government funds. If one was to look at the leading Paralympic nations, it`s difficult to ascertain as specific dollar figures are not presently available, but it would appear that those nations that are financially strong also produce Paralympic medal winners. Countries such as Canada, the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Russia, China, Brazil, Germany and France would certainly fall into this category.
The second pillar, the organisation and structure of sport, is also an interesting policy to consider as a potential cause of international sporting success. What might make for an interesting comparison among nations is looking at the difference between nations that have instituted inclusion with the able-bodied system and those that have not. Other permutations of this could be how the inclusion took place and when. One challenge in Canada has been that inclusion has taken place at the national/federal level since the 1990s but has not been mirrored at the Provincial/State or local/civic levels.
The third pillar is foundation and participation and here, the underlying assumption is that in order to have successful athletes at the top of the pyramid, there must be many at the foundation. The difficulty applying this to a Paralympic context is that there are typically few athletes in each category of disability and it`s hard to fathom a time when this might dramatically change. Obviously there are exceptions to this generalisation but the reality is, there will only be so many persons who are quadriplegics that want to play wheelchair rugby. The reality is though that increasing the participation core even subtly may be enough to ensure greater excellence among a few outliers.
The fourth pillar, which is talent identification and the development system, is also one that would be interesting to assess within a Paralympic context. One of the criticisms of the Paralympics system is that there are so few athletes and competitive opportunities that athletes can at times progress (some might suggest prematurely or rushed) from the grassroots system to the elite level without relevant progression. The identification of athletes and whether this happens in a systematic way would also be a worthwhile assessment. Many countries likely rely on the method of serendipity or coaches running after people with disabilities in shopping malls that are athletic looking. I recognise that many nations are now hosting days where persons with disabilities can try various sports but are we methodically helping channel them into those sports that might best suit their abilities?
The fifth pillar is athletic and post career support. Admittedly, this is an area where the Canadian Paralympic Committee has been negligent. Only now are we attempting to start an alumni program and the concept of supporting athletes through the post-athletic transition is one we only pay lip service to. The challenge, of course, is offering services with limited resources. Where we have excelled within this realm is in providing Paralympic athletes with financial support during their competitive careers. Athletes are “carded” by Sport Canada (the Federal Governments official sport Agency) the same as able-bodied athletes with monthly stipends. Whether this leads to medal success, however, is a different story.
The sixth pillar is training facilities and while many, if not most, national level areas are accessible, it`s not clear if this is true at the local level. Whether athletes with disabilities can even access facilities then is likely a predetermining factor to sporting success.
The seventh pillar is coaching provision and coach development and here again, Canada has made attempts to provide leadership by encouraging sports and the national coaching certification program to include elements and specific programs for athletes with a disability. The reality is, however, that finding athletes with a disability is a challenge and there are only a very few opportunities for a person to make a living in this realm.
The eighth pillar is international competition. Certainly the Paralympic movement has grown considerably and offers a broad array of competitive opportunities but it would be interesting to see if those nations that focus in this area then perform better on the largest stage.
The nine and final pillar is scientific research. This is a promising area and hopefully, because of journals such as this, the development and encouragement of scholars to address Paralympic sport will continue. That being said, it would be worthwhile to understand if those nations that focus on scientific research within the area of Paralympic sport have a concomitant level of success at Paralympic Games.
Conclusive Statements
The goal of this article was to provide a better understanding for the research that has taken place with regard to better understanding how policy makers can impact sporting success, and more specifically from an able-bodied perspective. The SPLISS study was highlighted but the goal was not to review this study as much as it was to present a call to arms for countries to join in future studies assessing Paralympic Sport systems. Hopefully this will lead to greater understanding of what pillars will lead to sporting success and a better system for athletes, coaches and sport leaders. Perhaps the concept of a rising tide raising all ships will temper or nullify a desire to not share any secrets we discover in the meantime. If you are interested in participating in this proposed study please contact David Legg at dlegg@mtroyal.ca.
References
De Bosscher, V., Bingham, J., Shibli, S., van Bottenburg, M. & De Knop P. (2008). The Global Sports Arms Race: An International Comparative Study on Sports Policy Factors Leading to International Sporting Success, Meyer & Meyer, Berlin.
De Bosscher, V., De Knop, P., van Bottenburg, M. & Shibli, S. (2006). A conceptual framework for analysing Sports Policy Factors Leading to international sporting success. European Sport Management Quarterly, 6, 185-215.
De Bosscher, V., De Knop, P. & van Bottenburg, M. (2007). Sports Policy Factors Leading to International Sporting Success. Published doctoral thesis. Brussels, BE: VUBPRESS.
De Bosscher, V., De Knop, P., van Bottenburg, M., Shibli, S. & Bingham, J. (2009). Explaining international sporting success. An International comparison of elite sport systems and policies in six nations. Sport Management Review, 12, 113-136.
De Bosscher, V., Shibli, S. van Bottenburg, M., De Knop, P. & Truyens, J. (2010). Developing a methodology for comparing the elite sport systems and policies of nations: a mixed research methods approach. Journal of Sport Management, 24, 567-600.
Clumpner, R. A. (1994). 21st century success in international competition. In R. Wilcox (Ed.), Sport in the global village (pp.298-303). Fitness Information Technology, Morgantown, WV: FIT.
Mannion T. (2011). Will Australia Remain a Paralympic Power? Available at: (http://www.paralympic.org.au/news). (accessed 9th May 2011).
Oakley, B. & Green, M. (2001). `The production of Olympic champions: International perspectives on elite sport development systems`, European Journal for Sport Management, 8, 1, 83-105.

Contact
Dr. David Legg
Mount Royal College
Department of Physical Education and Recreation
Calgary, Alberta
Canada
Email: DLegg@mtroyal.ab.ca

Handcycling: From Racing, to Recreation and Clinical Rehabilitation
Paul M. Smith & Thomas Abel
Introduction
Handcycling, as a generic concept, has existed since the mid 1980s and it is viewed by many as a sport for individuals with physical impairments. It is best described as a dynamic, exciting and liberating sport, which can also be pursued by able-bodied athletes. Handcycling was formally recognised as a sport by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) in 1999, and has been an integral part of the Paralympic programme since the Athens Games in 2004. Handcycling is very much part of the Paracycling family and, as such, the responsibility for governance of the sport lies with the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI).
In the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games, men and women competed in three distinct handcycling groups (HCA, HCB and HCC), although during the London 2012 Paralympic Games, competition will encompass four separate divisions (H1, H2, H3 and H4). For information relating to disability classifications used in handcycling, the technical specification of handbikes and rules relating to safety please refer to the Paracycling area on the official UCI website (http://www.uci.ch/).
The majority of handcycling competitions take place on the road, while a smaller number of athletes also participate in ultra-endurance races, multi-staged (touring) events, off-road riding and downhill handbiking. Athletes with the most severe physical impairments, including tetraplegia, compete in the H1 division - which includes the sub-categories of H1.1 and H1.2. Athletes in divisions H1, H2 and H3 adopt a seated or recumbent position, which is commonly referred to as the arm power (AP) position, while athletes in the H4 division kneel and can, therefore, use their arms and trunk (the ATP position) to develop propulsive forces.
Photo 1: A group of H4 athletes wait on the start line of a criterium race ahead of a larger group of H3 riders. Photo provided courtesy of Dr Paul M. Smith.
It should be noted that while this article will primarily focus upon handcycling as a Paralympic sport, this exercise mode can be also pursued recreationally and used as a daily form of ambulation. Handcycling is more efficient than conventional hand-rim wheelchair propulsion (Mukherjee & Samanta, 2001; Abel, Kröner, Vega, Peters, Klose and Platen, 2003; Abel, Schneider, Platen and Strüder, 2006; Dallmeijer, Zentgraaff, Zijp and van der Woude, 2004b), and it has been postulated that regular engagement with handcycling will likely lead to fewer painful and debilitating overuse injuries (van der Woude, de Groot, and Janssen, 2006). During competition and training, handcycling can be sustained for prolonged periods of time and necessitates a metabolic demand (Janssen, Dallmeijer and van der Woude, 2001; Abel et al., 2003; Groen, van der Woude and de Koning, 2010) that is sufficient to offer protection against the development of secondary conditions such as cardiovascular disease (Abel et al., 2003).
Road Racing and Sportive Events
Most handcyclists compete in road racing competitions that normally take the form of mass start races, criterium (closed circuit) races and individual time trials. During road and criterium races, athletes are permitted to draft one another, but only within their own competitive division. During a classic time trial, the athlete races alone and against the clock, and this form of racing is viewed by many as the most pure and gruelling test of both physical and psychological fortitude. While many standalone handcycling races are organised around the world, a number are embedded within City Marathons. This is interesting as the Marathon is viewed by many and portrayed by the media as an Athletics event, but this racing format facilitates the worthwhile and important integration of disabled athletes into high profile events that often gain invaluable media coverage.
Body position plays a critical role in the trade-off between an athlete`s ability to generate propulsive crank forces and the relative aerodynamic characteristics of the athlete-handbike unit. Prior to the Beijing Paralympic Games a specific rule stated that the back rest of a recumbent handbike could not be set at an angle beyond 45º from the vertical. However, that rule has since been relaxed, and riders can now set their back rest at any angle, though for safety reasons athletes must ensure they have a clear and unobstructed view over the crank housing.
Although more power can be generated by H4 riders adopting an ATP position, competitors who adopt the AP position benefit from a lower racing profile and a smaller frontal surface area. At present, the best athletes in the H3 division are marginally faster than their H4 counterparts, a fact that can be exemplified using the World`s best times for H3 and H4 athletes to compete in a Marathon – even though this is essentially an IPC Athletics event, and no World Championship qualification points are available to handcyclists in such events. Nevertheless, many athletes compete in these races and for H4 athletes the best time stands at 1 hr 03 min 41 s. However, several H3 riders have recently posted a time of 1 hr 00 min 03 s, which translates to an average velocity of approximately 42 km•hr-1 (or 26 mph) for a little over one hour. It is certain that co-operation between several athletes riding together, drafting each other and taking turns to lead the group, will have contributed to this impressive achievement.
In addition to competitive racing, more adventurous athletes participate in ultra-endurance and sportive events. Such ultra-endurance races include the Tour du Lac Léman (Lake Geneva; 174km) and the Styrkeprøven experience in Norway, a 540km race that has to be completed within a time frame of 45 hours (Abel, Burkett, Schneider, Lindschulten and Strüder, 2010). Numerous other staged events also exist such as the Toer de Kapp, South Africa, which is comprised of 6 stages over 557km and the Sadler`s Alaska Challenge, featuring 6 stages over 416km.
Optimising Handcycling Performance
Limited scientific information exists within the field of competitive (elite) Handcycling; little is known about the optimal technical set-up of a handbike, and the physiological characteristics of elite handcyclists are not well understood. Using a small group (n = 4) of Dutch National squad athletes, Groen et al. (2010) recently demonstrated that handcycling performance can be characterised using a power balance model. Janssen et al. (2001) explored the physical capacity of competitive handcyclists and demonstrated that peak aerobic power (r = 0.91) and VO2peak (r = 0.90) correlated well to 10km race performance, and it was also suggested that gross (mechanical) efficiency was an important determinant of performance. However, participants of a wide range of abilities were recruited, and a recreational, upright handbike was employed for the purpose of conducting peak aerobic capacity tests. Furthermore, the authors did not identify the metabolic thresholds of their participants, which might have been a significant omission as such parameters would likely be strong determinants of exercise tolerance and overall performance.
As with all aspects of sport and exercise science, it is important to draw a distinction between the sometimes very pointed objectives and conclusions that can be drawn from a group-based, scientific (research) study, and the holistic attention to detail that is needed to provide an individual athlete with meaningful and effective sports science support. In this regard, it is worth noting that due to individual preferences and distinct athlete idiosyncrasies, interventions and strategies that “work” for one athlete will not necessarily translate and apply to all. This is where the real future challenges for athletes, coaches and scientists lie, especially as the sport of handcycling could realistically benefit from a multi-/interdisciplinary approach. Essentially, knowledge from the respective fields of mechanical engineering, sports biomechanics, exercise physiology, sports nutrition and sport psychology could contribute to optimising an individual athlete`s performance.
In the modern era, athletes are becoming more knowledgeable about the demands of handcycling and are acutely aware of factors that limit their performance. This is particularly true of tetraplegic athletes where the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system has sometimes been completely compromised. In such a case, normal functioning on the various physiological systems is absent, resulting in limited functional capacity and considerable thermoregulatory challenges. When the competitive histories of several athletes are considered, it is fair to draw the conclusion that many seasons of competition, combined with chronic physiological and metabolic adaptations are required to enable an athlete to compete at the highest level. This observation might well relate to the fact that many successful athletes with traumatic physical impairments only begin their sporting career somewhat later in life, and following an unexpected incident. Nevertheless, it is possible that the career of a competitive handcyclist could significantly outlast that of an able-bodied competitor, though there is currently no published evidence to support this subjective conjecture.
Photo 2: Two H1 (tetraplegic) athletes attempt to keep cool ahead of an individual time trial in the Czech Republic. Photo provided courtesy of Dr Paul M. Smith.
An increasing number of handcyclists have become professional athletes and, as such, are able to devote more time to the sport. Most athletes are fully aware of nutritional strategies that can be used in preparation for, and during an event, and many athletes use heart rate monitors to help regulate effort during training and competition. A smaller number of athletes use sophisticated and expensive technology in the form of portable power metres such as SRM cranks and the PowerTap hub. These systems facilitate the precise monitoring of effort in real time, and assist in the execution of tactical strategies. This application is of particular relevance for athletes who do not possess normal sympathetic function having sustained a high (cervical level) spinal cord injury. However, if such expensive technology is financially beyond the reach of an athlete, it has been demonstrated that “moderate and vigorous (exercise) intensities” can be effectively controlled using subjective ratings of perceived exertion (Goosey-Tolfrey, Lenton, Goddard, Oldfield, Tolfrey and Eston, 2010). However, paraplegic athletes were used in this study, and whether similar control mechanisms can be implemented by tetraplegic athletes remains to be established.
Some athletes are using other novel approaches in an attempt to optimise their performance. For example, a small number of recumbent athletes have gone to lengths to ensure the footrests of their light-weight, carbon fibre handbikes are moulded to further improve the overall aerodynamics of the system. During time trials, some athletes wear profiled helmets and tight fitting sporting apparel to further improve their aerodynamics; with regard to the latter point, it is also possible that the use of such compression garments could further improve an athlete`s functional capacity by promoting venous return, and preventing blood pooling in the legs, though this theory has not yet been scientifically explored.
Scientific Enquiry in Handcycling
With the exception of purpose-built arm crank ergometers, there is currently no such thing as a commercially-available handcycling testing-rig. Therefore, compared to other disability sports such as wheelchair racing and wheelchair basketball, relatively little information exists for handcycling, although there does appear to be a recent growth in scientific interest and enquiry within this field. Not only has limited handcycling-related research been completed, but diverse scientific approaches have been employed. For example, several studies (Abel et al. 2003; Goosey-Tolfrey Alfano and Fowler, 2008; Goosey-Tolfrey et al., 2010; Faupin, Gorce, Meyer and Thevenon, 2008; Faupin, Gorce, Watelain, Meyer and Thevenon, 2010; Meyer, Weissland, Watelain, Dumas, Baudinet and Faupin, 2009) have used turbo-/ero-trainers to administer laboratory-based tests. Other investigations (van der Woude, Bosmans, Bervoets and Veeger, 2000; Janssen et al. 2001; Dallmeijer, Ottjes, de Waardt and van der Woude, 2004a; Dallmeijer et al., 2004b; Knechtle, Müller and Knecht, 2004; Abbasi Bafghi, de Haan, Horstman and van der Woude, 2008) have used motorised treadmills, and quantified according to the rolling resistance associated with each athlete-handbike combination. Finally, several studies (Maki, Langbein and Reid-Lokos, 1995; Mukherjee & Samanta, 2001; Abel et al., 2006; 2010; Krämer, Schneider, Böhm, Klöpfer-Krämer and Senner, 2009; Groen et al., 2010) have been conducted in a field setting, so it is often very difficult to compare and contrast published findings. Where group-based data has been presented, heterogeneous groups of participants have been used. And this observation especially applies to studies where mixed groups of paraplegic and tetraplegic participants have been used (Janssen et al., 2001; Abel et al., 2003). Not only will this result in a wide range of functional capacities, but there will also be considerable between-participant variations in physiological responses, exercise tolerance and functional capacity.
As emphasised above, there is arguably a need for a multi-/interdisciplinary approach in this field of enquiry. Indeed, Abbasi Bafghi et al. (2008) recently explored the “biophysical” aspects of submaximal handcycling, but for convenience, used able-bodied participants and an upright, recreational device instead of a racing handbike. While the use of novice, able-bodied participants is commonplace within the literature (van der Woude et al., 2000; Dallmeijer et al., 2004a; Faupin, Gorce, Campillo, Thevenon and Rémy-Néris, 2006; Abbasi Bafghi et al., 2008; Krämer et al., 2009), findings from such studies are not directly applicable to individuals with physical impairments. In contrast, several studies have used experienced and/or competitive handcyclists within their experimental set-up (Janssen et al., 2001; Abel et al., 2003; 2006; 2010; Knechtle et al. 2004; Goosey-Tolfrey et al., 2008; Leicht, Smith, Sharpe, Perret and Goosey-Tolfrey, 2010), although as described before, different experimental approaches have been used making inter-study comparisons difficult.
Other publications have used case reports to characterise the physiological requirements of athletes during standard competition (Abel et al., 2006) and an ultra-endurance event (Abel et al., 2010), to assess physiological responses during a laboratory test (Meyer, Weissland, Watelain, Dumas, Baudinet and Faupin, 2009) and to biomechanically analyse the generic movement patterns during “moderate intensity” handcycling (Faupin et al., 2010). Therefore, we conclude that more research is required within the field of competitive handcycling where groups of trained and experienced (elite) handcyclists are purposefully recruited.
Applications for Health & Rehabilitation
As noted earlier, handcycling can be pursued recreationally and can be used as a generic mode of ambulation in everyday life (van der Woude, Dallmeijer, Janssen, and Veeger, 2001; Dallmeijer et al., 2004b). The vast majority of handcycling research conducted to date has focused upon handcycling as a health-related topic. This is unsurprising given that the scientific findings from such enquiries are translational, and hold almost immediate applications for a large number of individuals with physical impairments. There are many anecdotal reports of handcycling being used to encourage clinical patients to become and/or increase their level of physical activity, and Valent, Dallmeijer, Houdijk, Slootman, Post and van der Woude (2008) clearly demonstrated the efficacy of handcycling in developing the functional capacity of tetraplegic individuals beyond hospital discharge.
Photo3: A tetraplegic patient handcycling for the first time in clinical rehabilitation setting. Photo provided courtesy of Dr Paul M. Smith – also pictured.
The daily use of crank-driven systems can be achieved using upright (recreational) handbikes, or temporary clip-on devices that can transform a conventional, rigid wheelchair into a crank-propelled system. Even individuals with the most severe physical impairments can handcycle, and quickly find they are able to safely and effectively travel over a wide variety of terrains such a grass, cobbles and lose-surface tracks. As well as the adoption of a sociable (reclined) body position, most handcycling devices are fitted with gears, which makes it easier for individuals to negotiate inclines unassisted.
In the context of health and rehabilitation, workers have compared physiological responses and functional capacity during wheelchair propulsion, arm crank ergometry and handcycling. While similar peak physiological responses can be achieved during wheelchair propulsion and arm crank ergometry (Glaser, Sawka, Brune and Wilde, 1980; Pitetti, Snell and Stray Gundersen, 1987; Tropp, Samuelsson and Jorfeldt, 1997), it is evident that sub-maximal arm crank ergometry (Glaser et al., 1980; Hintzy, Tordi and Perrey, 2002) and handcycling (van der Woude, Groot, Hollander, van Ingen Schenau and Rozendall, 1986; Mukherjee & Samanta, 2001; Dallmeijer et al., 2004b) is more efficient. Mukherjee & Samanta (2001) reported that experienced participants with “dysfunctional lower extremities” achieved higher ambulatory velocities, and were more efficient using an upright handcycle. This finding was confirmed by Dallmeijer et al. (2004b), who also demonstrated that higher peak power outputs could be achieved using an upright handcycle compared to hand-rim wheelchair propulsion.
In considering the available evidence, it is clear that handcycling represents an alternative and favourable form of ambulation compared to hand-rim wheelchair propulsion. Indeed, van der Woude et al. (2001) suggested that handcycling could help individuals become physically active and prevent the negative health consequences of long-term inactivity. As already mentioned, Abel et al. (2003) reported that moderate intensity handcycling was associated with a suitable level of energy expenditure that could help in the prevention of progressive cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, Knechtle et al. (2004) reported that the optimal rate of fat metabolism in experienced handcyclists occurred at a much lower exercise intensity (55% VO2peak) compared to that of trained able-bodied cyclists (75% VO2peak). Previous work (Bostom, Toner, McArdle, Montelione, Brown and Stein, 1991) demonstrated that the functional capacity of paraplegic men is inversely related to atherogenic lipid-lipoprotein indices, so it appears that even moderate intensity handcycling could be beneficial in this regard.
Future Directions
The physiological correlates of handcycling (road racing and time trial) performance are not that well understood, and this fact alone makes it difficult for Performance Directors and coaching staff within National Cycling Federations to identify (potential) talent. This partly explains why there is a discrepancy in diagnostic tests used by several nations. Moreover, some National Cycling Federations do not use diagnostic tests and performance criteria at all, but instead rely upon the competitive performances of athletes close to major championships to determine squad selection, though this ad hoc approach is neither scientific nor strategic.
Further scientific enquiry within this intriguing field of research is clearly warranted. It is of course important to explore the relative efficacy of nutritional ergogenic aids, and there is a need to further consider fundamental issues of exercise tolerance, functional capacity and mechanical efficiency. It is also important to explore and identify multi-/interdisciplinary correlates of performance; however, due to the limited subpopulation of elite athletes, it is likely that such work will require collaboration between international research groups in order to succeed, and to help realise this ambitious objective, clear standards for scientific research in the field of competitive handcycling need to be established.
Conclusions
Handcycling is a relatively new, dynamic, liberating and energetic sport that can be pursued by individuals in a competitive or recreational format. Handcycling can also be used as a daily mode of ambulation by individuals with even the most severe physical impairments. The sport has been effectively used to improve functional capacity in the context of outpatient rehabilitation and can offer ongoing protection against secondary conditions such as obesity, cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes mellitus. Even though this exercise mode is attracting more research interest, very little is known about the various applications of the sport. Furthermore, between-study comparisons are complicated due to the fact laboratory and/or field-based studies have employed a variety of experimental approaches. A greater amount of scientific enquiry is required where participants with physical impairments are purposefully sampled, and future work should attempt to more fully characterise the physiological demands associated with the sport of handcycling, and endeavour to establish the various multi-/interdisciplinary determinants of elite performance.
References
Abbasi Bafghi, H., de Haan, A., Horstman, A. & van der Woude, L. H. (2008). Biophysical aspects of submaximal handcycling. International Journal of Sports Medicine; 29: 630-638.
Abel, T., Burkett, B., Schneider, S., Lindschulten, R. & Strüder, H. K. (2010). The exercise profile of an ultra-long handcycling race: the Styrkeprøven experience. Spinal Cord; 48: 894-898.
Abel, T., Kröner, M., Vega, S. R., Peters, C, Klose, C. & Platen, P. (2003). Energy expenditure in wheelchair racing and handbiking – a basis for prevention of cardiovascular disease in those with disabilities. European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation; 10: 371-376.
Abel, T., Schneider, S., Platen, P. & Strüder. H. K. (2006). Performance diagnostics of handbiking during competition. Spinal Cord; 44: 211-216.
Bostom, A. G., Toner, M. M., McArdle, W. D., Montelione, T., Brown, C. D. & Stein, R. A. (1991). Lipid and lipoprotein profiles related to peak aerobic power in spinal cord injured men. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise; 23: 409-414.
Dallmeijer, A. J., Ottjes, L., de Waardt, E. & van der Woude L. H. V. (2004a). A physiological comparison of synchronous and asynchronous handcycling. International Journal of Sports Medicine; 25: 622-626.
Dallmeijer, A. J., Zentgraaff, I. D. B., Zijp, N. I. & van der Woude, L. H. (2004b). Submaximal physical strain and peak performance in handcycling versus handrim wheelchair propulsion. Spinal Cord; 42: 91-98.
Faupin, A., Gorce, P., Campillo, P., Thevenon, A. & Rémy-Néris. (2006). Kinematic analysis of handbike propulsion in various rear ratios: implications for joint pain. Clinical Biomechanics; 21: 560-566.
Faupin, A., Gorce, P., Meyer, C. & Thevenon, A. (2008) Effects of backrest positioning and gear ratio on nondisabled subjects` handcycling sprinting performance and kinematics. Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development; 45: 109-116.
Faupin, A., Gorce, P., Watelain, E., Meyer, C. & Thevenon, A. (2010). A biomechanical analysis of handcycling: a case study. Journal of Applied Biomechanics; 26: 240-245.
Glaser, R. M., Sawka, M. N., Brune, M. F. & Wilde, S. W. (1980). Physiological responses to maximal effort wheelchair and arm crank ergometry. Journal of Applied Physiology; 48: 1060-1064.
Goosey-Tolfrey, V. L., Alfano, H. & Fowler, N. (2008). The influence of crank length and cadence on mechanical efficiency in hand cycling. European Journal of Applied Physiology; 102: 189-194.
Goosey-Tolfrey, V. L., Lenton, J., Goddard, J., Oldfield, V., Tolfrey, K. & Eston, R. L. (2010). Regulating intensity using perceived exertion in spinal cord-injured participants. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 42: 608-613.
Groen, W., van der Woude, L. H. V. & de Koning, J. J. (2010). A power balance model for handcycling. Disability and Rehabilitation; 32: 2165-2171.
Hintzy, F., Tordi, N. & Perrey, S. (2002). Muscular efficiency during arm cranking and wheelchair exercise: a comparison. International Journal of Sports Medicine; 23: 408-414.
Janssen, T. W. J., Dallmeijer, A. J. & van der Woude, L. H. V. (2001). Physical capacity and race performance of handcycle users. Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development; 38: 33-40.
Knechtle, B., Müller, G. & Knecht, H. (2004). Optimal exercise intensity for fat metabolism in handbike cycling and cycling. Spinal Cord; 42: 564-572.
Krämer, C., Schneider, G., Böhm, H., Klöpfer-Krämer, I. & Senner, V. (2009). Effect of different handgrip angles on work distribution during hand cycling at submaximal power levels. Ergonomics; 52: 1276-1286.
Leicht, C., Smith, P. M., Sharpe, G., Perret, C. & Goosey-Tolfrey, V. L. (2010). The effects of a respiratory warm-up on the physical capacity and ventilatory response in paraplegic individuals. European Journal of Applied Physiology; 110: 1291-1298.
Maki, K. C., Langbein, W. E. & Reid-Lokos, C. (1995). Energy cost and locomotive economy of handbike and rowcycle propulsion by persons with spinal cord injury. Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development; 32: 170-178.
Meyer, C., Weissland, T., Watelain, S., Dumas, S. R., Baudinet, M.-C. & Faupin, A. (2009). Physiological responses in handcycling. Preliminary study. Annals of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine; 52: 311-318.
Mukherjee, G. & Samanta, A. (2001). Physiological responses to the ambulatory performance of hand-rim and arm crank propulsion systems. Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development; 38: 391-399.
Pitetti, K. H., Snell, P. G. & Stray Gundersen, J. (1987). Maximal responses of wheelchair-confined subjects to four types of arm exercise. Archives of Physical and Medical Rehabilitation; 68: 10-13.
Tropp, H., Samuelsson, K. & Jorfeldt, L. (1997). Power output for wheelchair driving on a treadmill compared with arm crank ergometry. British Journal of Sports Medicine; 31: 41-44.
Valent, L. J., Dallmeijer, A. J., Houdijk, H., Slootman, H. J., Post, M. & van der Woude, L. H. (2008). Influence of hand cycling on physical capacity in the rehabilitation of persons with a spinal cord injury: a longitudinal cohort study. Archives of Physical and Medical Rehabilitation; 89: 1016-1022.
van der Woude, L. H. V., Bosmans, I., Bervoets, B. & Veeger, H. E. J. (2000). Handcycling: different modes and gear ratios. Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology; 24: 242-249.
van der Woude, L. H. V., Dallmeijer, A. J., Janssen, T. W. J & Veeger, D. (2001). Alternative modes of manual wheelchair ambulation. American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation; 80: 765-777.
van der Woude, L. H. V., Groot, G., Hollander, A. P., van Ingen Schenau, G. J. & Rozendall, R. H. (1986). Wheelchair ergonomics and physiological testing of prototypes. Ergonomics; 29: 1561-1573.
van der Woude, L. H. V., de Groot, S. & Janssen, T. W. J. (2006). Manual wheelchairs: research and innovation in rehabilitation, sports, daily life and health. Medical Engineering and Physics; 28: 905-915.

Contact
Paul M. Smith
University of Wales Institute,
Cardiff, United Kingdom
Email: p.smith@uwic.ac.uk
Dr. Thomas Abel
German Sport University Cologne
Cologne, Germany
Email: abel@dshs-koeln.de
The International Paralympic Committee Classification Code: Solid Foundation or Built on Sand?
Colin Higgs
Introduction
The Governing Board of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) approved a Classification Strategy in 2003, which recommended the development of a universal Classification Code. The IPC Classification Code is designed to be a high level overview of requirements and best practices. In compliance with the Code, individual International Sport Federations (IFs) are responsible for the development and application of their sport specific-classification systems (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. IPC Classification Chart
The Classification Code was developed between 2003 and 2007 and was approved by the IPC General Assembly in November 2007. The purpose of the code(1) was, and remains, to “ensure that an Athlete`s impairment is relevant to sport performance and to ensure that the Athlete competes equitably with other Athletes”.
These two stated purposes therefore require a detailed examination of:

- The relationship between impairment and sport performance, and
- The concept of equitable competition.

Impairment and sport performance
It is self-evident that, in general, higher degrees of impairment translate into lower levels of sports performance. However, the relationship is not linear and is specifically related to the technical and physical demands of the sport. Compare, for example, the impact of different levels of impairment on different sports. For ease of comparison let us consider different levels of impairment from either of two types of disability (spinal cord injury or amputation) in the sports of athletics (running), wheelchair basketball and archery (see figure 2).
In running, there is a progressive reduction in running performance as the athlete progressively loses function in the parts of the body below the ankle, then the knee and then the hip. With any greater degree of impairment, the sport activity becomes impossible.
In archery, an increasing level of impairment from ankle to knee to hip has a small impact on shooting performance, but with increasing impairment through the trunk region, accompanied by a loss of trunk mobility, there is a more rapid decrease in sport performance. Once the impairment involves the upper limb, reduction in performance decreases rapidly until the activity becomes impossible or near impossible.
In wheelchair basketball the relationship is somewhat more progressive.
Under the Code, there is a requirement for evidence based data explicitly linking sport performance to degree of impairment, and sports, through their International Federations (IFs) have undertaken (or are undertaking) this work. Their objective is to quantify the relationship and determine which components of impairment contribute to changes in sport performance. While doing this, there is also a need to ensure that the approved classification system, based on the relationship between impairment and sport performance, does not take away the desirable advantage that accrues to athletes who train harder and are better coached.
One difficult problem that this approach raises is that of untangling the complex interactions between genetic predisposition for athletic performance, degree of impairment and improvement through training. Any given sport action can potentially be achieved in different ways, and each individual athlete, will perform the desired action with a unique combination of (a) genetically determined athletic potential, (b) the cumulative effects of years of training and (c) the athlete`s degree of impairment. Methods for separating the relative contribution of these three factors have not yet been established, and this remains a classification system weakness.
Figure 2: An idealised model of the impairment-sport performance relationship for three different sports
Hidden Assumptions underlying classification systems
There are a number of key assumptions that underlie much of the evidence-base for classification systems, of which some of the most important are assumptions about body-symmetry, inter-event homogeneity, and equipment independence. It should be noted that these assumptions do not apply equally to all sports.
The assumption of Sport Symmetry
There is an underlying assumption that sport is symmetrical; that is, that what the left and right side of the body can do in sport is identical and are mirror images of each other. In able-bodied athletes, this assumption of symmetry overwhelmingly holds true since there are few discernible differences in the structure and biomechanical performance of the left and right sides of the body. Where such differences exist due to the hand-dominance preferred by the athlete, there is the ability in almost all sports for the athlete to perform either right or left handed.
While many sports for persons with a disability are bi-laterally symmetrical - the left and right sides of the body performing identical actions - others are not, and this has the potential to create different impairment-sport performance relationships for athletes impaired on the left or right side of the body. Contrast, for example, sprinting in swimming and athletics.
In the pool the athlete has the option, on the starting blocks, of leading with either foot; and a left-foot push-off is functionally identical to a right-foot push-off. The pool is symmetrical and the swimmer moves only in a straight line. An athlete with a below-the-knee right-leg amputation has the same relationship between impairment and potential for sport performance as the below-the-knee left-leg amputation. The same is true for athletes in the pool who have arm impairments.
On the running track, however, things are different. Running tracks are oval(2) , and all events longer than 100m take place on the oval or the curved portion of the oval, with the runner always making a left-turn to stay in his or her lane. With the running path asymmetrical, it is therefore interesting to speculate on whether impairments to the left and right sides of the body have the same impact on sport performance.
There is a paucity of empirical data on running speeds “around the curves” of left-leg vs right-leg amputees. However, there are good theoretical reasons why the loss of the leg on one side of the body might place the runner at a disadvantage. Two well-substantiated observations lead to this conclusion.
First, there are unavoidable physical laws which dictate that the runner must “lean in” towards the inside of the curve to counteract the centrifugal force generated by the motion of running a curved path. The amount of lean required for balance depends on the speed of running(3) and the radius of the turn (making this more of a problem for those on the inside lane as opposed to those on the outside lane). Since 200m races are the fastest curve-running events, the lean-in is greatest at this distance.
Secondly, there is the observation that among single-leg amputees there is frequently a lifting of the hip on the side of the body on which they are required by the rules of track and field to run in a counter-clockwise direction around the track, it is interesting to consider whether a left-leg or right-leg amputation confers any advantage. When running counter-clockwise around the track, the runner leans to his or her left to counteract the centrifugal force generated. This in turn tilts the hip slightly so that the outside (right) hip is higher than the inside (left) hip. The higher hip position means that a prosthetic limb can swing-through with a minimum of deliberate right-hip lift. Conversely, if the runner has left-leg prosthesis and is also leaning to the left, then the deliberate hip-lift to permit the prosthesis to swing-through will need to be greater than if running in a straight line.
The hypothesis (that needs to be experimentally tested) is therefore that a right- leg amputation confers an advantage (see Figure 3). There are other sport activity examples in which asymmetry may play an important role. Staying with Track and Field, consider, for example the standing throws. In the standing throws, lower-limb impairment may be asymmetrical, meaning that the lower-limb impairment can be on the same side of the body as the throwing arm, or can be on the opposite side. Since the leg action in all of the throwing techniques is known to be asymmetrical, it is reasonable to assume that same-side, and opposite-side lower limb impairments will not have the same impact on sport performance. In one widely used shot-put technique, for example, a right handed thrower will start bent from the waist with all of their weight supported by the right leg. The right leg is then used to glide across the throwing circle, to generate body speed that can be added to the speed imparted to the shot by the trunk and then the shoulder/arms. This provides an inability to generate this gliding speed which will in turn impact throw velocity and therefore the distance of the throw.
There is also a different issue related to running symmetry, and that is the changing relationship between sport performance and single versus double amputation. Historically single amputees outperformed double amputees, but with development of prostheses that store and return energy, this has changed. Modern prostheses return more energy to the runner than a natural leg, and there is now some belief that, from a sport performance perspective, the double amputee now has an advantage.
The assumption of intra-sport, inter-event homogeneity
When athletes are classified for participation in a sport, there is an underlying assumption that the same relationship between impairment and sport performance holds for all events within the sport. This may not be true, and requires empirical investigation by IFs that have multi-event sports. In swimming, for example, issues of muscle control might be more important in sprints than in distance events given the different contribution of power and endurance to sprints and distance events. If this is in fact the case, the Code requirement for equitable competition essentially demands an event-specific classification system within the sport.
Figure 3. Track running on a curve, and its relationship to hip-lift
The Assumption of Equipment/technique independence
In classification, there is also an assumption that the impact of impairment on sport performance is independent of the equipment used. Again, this assumption may not be correct. Two examples clarify the relationship.
Progressively greater trunk stability has been achieved in wheelchair racing and sit-skiing through the development of chair “bucket” designs in which the structure of the wheelchair or sit-ski seat prevents trunk movement and therefore reduces the impact of trunk instability through muscle loss and the potential performance difference between sports classes with different degrees of truck instability. Potential future integration of seat and supportive-clothing design could push this development even further. A second example is the invention in the 1980s of backhand wheeling techniques by tetraplegics - an invention that significantly reduced the sport performance differences between the then existing wheelchair racing classes.
The unanticipated consequence of this interaction between the impairment - sport performance relationship and technique and equipment is that to maintain a fair and equitable classification system, it will need to be re-evaluated every time a new type of equipment or updated performance technique is developed.
It should be noted that the responsibility for investigating the impairment-sport performance relationship falls clearly to the International Federation responsible for the sport in question. However, some guidance from the Code concerning what could/should be taking into consideration, and how frequently classification systems need to be updated, would be valuable.
The concept of equitable competition
The Code requires International Federations responsible for a sport to ensure, “that the Athlete competes equitably with other Athletes”. However, in a system of competition that declares victors and celebrates elite performance, the concept of equitable competition is essentially an oxymoron.
The meaning of the term “equitable” has been subject to considerable debate, particularly in the areas of gender and employment equity. It is differentiated from the concept of “equal” in one fundamental way. In equal competition, everyone starts with the same rules, regulations and under the same conditions, and this is the case for events at World Championship or at the Olympics. The suitability of a particular individual for participation in a specific event is of no concern in a system of equal competition. Those who are best suited by way of body morphology, inherent talent, genetic predisposition, or dedication and desire win - and those who lose out in the genetic lottery for that even are out of luck.
In a truly equitable sport system, the way sport is conducted would be modified so that, regardless of level of impairment, each athlete would have a fair, equal, chance of being the victor. Elsewhere (Higgs, 2005) it has been demonstrated mathematically that, in ANY system of classification in which a continuum of impairment is divided into ANY number of discrete Classes:

- There will be no way in which the athletes with the greatest impairment within a class can compete equitably with those within the same class who have the least impairment, and
- There will be some athletes in a DIFFERENT class closer in level in impairment, than the level of impairment of some athletes in the same class .

Given that these two statements can be proven (in the true sense of a logical proof) then it becomes clear that the Classification Code is built on a shaky foundation. If, however, the Code were to proclaim its purpose to be something along the lines of, “Recognising that competition can never be equitable, the purpose of the Code is to define the degree of inequitable competition compatible with the ideals of the Paralympic Movement and the development of a robust and well accepted system of competition” then it would be an much firmer ground.
Conclusions
In its current form, the IPC Classification Code serves as a meaningful foundation for the evolution of Sports-Based Classification Systems by International Sport Federations. It rightly places the emphasis firmly on:

- The International Sports Federations being the groups best positioned to investigate and understand the relationship between level of impairment and sport performance in their specific sport.
- The need for any classification system to undertake empirical investigations to understand and describe the sport-specific (perhaps even event specific) relationship between impairment and sport performance.

What the Code fails to address (and in so doing places a burden - without guidance - on the IFs) is the degree of inequity in competition (caused by the inherent inequity of dividing a continuum of impairment into discrete, non-overlapping Classes) that is compatible with IPC ideals of competitive fairness.
International Federations have made great strides in moving classification from a medical model to a far more appropriate sport-based model, but have not fully thought through the underlying assumptions of their system. Indeed, the Code is a good foundation for future development, but, like any new edifice, there are a few early cracks in the foundation, that can be, and should be, fixed. When fixed, the `Code` will give classification the long-term stability it so badly needs.
Notes
(1) IPC Classification Code, Paragraph 2.1.1, Page 7
(2) Technically an oblique straight oval
(3) Specifically to the velocity of running squared
References
International Paralympic Committee (2007). The Classification Code. IPC Handbook, Section 2, Chapter 1.3. Available at: (www.paralympic.org/sport/Classification) (accessed 25th April 2011).
Higgs, C. (2005). The theoretical problems of classification systems. In `The Proceedings of the 2005 VISTA Conference`, Bonn, Germany.
Contact
Prof. Dr. Colin Higgs
Memorial University of Newfoundland
School of Human Kinetics and Recreation
St. John`s, Canada
Email: chiggsconsulting@mac.com

Coaching athletes with disabilities: Challenges and Recommendations
Nagoor Meera Abdullah, Kwame Ampofo-Boateng, Rozita Abdul Latif & Hisyam Che Mat
Abstract
This article briefly discusses athletes with disabilities and how their condition can be matched with suitable activities to allow them to participate in physical activity and sports. The article also aims at assisting coaches who conduct training for people with disability to understand their condition first, and then devise programmes that are appropriate for their condition. Furthermore, it highlights the barriers and conditions that affect athletes with disability`s participation in sports, especially those related to the health, safety and medical considerations that coaches should understand and manage carefully. The article also offers recommendations on how coaches should train athletes with disability.
Introduction
Sport for the persons with disabilities, just like their able bodied peers, provides many benefits, including: increased strength and endurance; improvements in performance; restoration of mental activity; increased self-confidence, and overall improvement in quality of life. Moreover, sports play a major role in social, medical, educational and vocational aspects of comprehensive rehabilitation programmes for people with disability. For these reasons, the first competitive sports for the physically disabled were introduced by Sir Ludwig Guttmann at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in 1948. These were called the Stoke Mandeville Games (SMG), and continue today as the International Stoke Mandeville Games (Skaggs & Hooper, 1996).
Although able-bodied and persons with disabilities focus on their quality of life and wellbeing (Van der Woude, Veeger & Rozendal 1989), those with disability generally are less likely to have opportunities to be active, making health concerns due to inactivity greater than for the able-bodied (Block, 1995; Colak, Bamac, Aydin & Ozbek, 2004; Longmuir & Bar-Or, 2000; Messent, Cooke & Long, 1999; Pitetti, Climstein & Barret, 1992). For example, persons who are visually-impaired use more energy during activities of daily living (Buell, 1982) and tend to have lower levels of physical activity and health-related fitness than those who are sighted (Horvat, Ray, Ramsey, Miszko, Keeney & Blasch, 2003; Lieberman, Byrne, Mattern, Fernandez-Vivo & Robinson, 2006; Sit, Lindner & Sherill, 2002; Williams, 1990). Furthermore, impairments affect muscle strength and motor control performance for those with motor impairments and these can limit participation in sports.
With the special needs of persons with disabilities in mind, coaches should design training programmes to deal appropriately with these needs. In fact, coaching athletes with disabilities is not a difficult task if a coach is able to accept each participant as an individual and deal with their specific needs and conditions. As a coach, it is important to be aware of each person`s disability and the level at which these athletes are capable of functioning. Remember that even people with the same physical condition may choose different activities and develop the skills associated with those activities, albeit to different levels of performance (Note: throughout this article, the term condition(s) is used synonymously with disability (disabilities)). Coaches should also understand the definitions of different types of disability. For example, coaches should understand the differences between athletes with Cerebral Palsy (CP), amputations and spinal cord injury (SCI). They should also be aware that mental disabilities can be grouped into various conditions such as Down syndrome, slow learner, autism, dyslexia and mental retardation. There are also other categories of disabilities, including athletes who are visually-impaired and hearing-impaired. Physical disabilities may also affect mobility, balance, agility, strength, endurance, cardiovascular or a combination of these. The foregoing lists different types of disabilities that might influence sports participation and performance which coaches should consider as they train athletes with disabilities.
Important factors to consider when training athletes with disabilities
Below are some important aspects that coaches need to consider in developing their training programmes for athletes with disabilities.

- Keep a good balance between mind, technique and the body of athletes with disabilities in training programmes.
- Accept each athlete`s disabilities/physical conditions as unique and design appropriate training programmes for them.
- Have adequate knowledge of the rules and laws of sport and how they might affect athletes with disabilities.
- Develop an awareness of the equipment that athletes with disabilities use including gloves, rams and wheelchairs and make sure they are suitable for the particular sports.
- Compared to coaches of able-bodied athletes, coaches of athletes with physical disabilities require greater flexibility and lateral thinking in order to attain the best possible movement patterns for their athletes.
- Coaches of athletes with physical disabilities have to address the added dimension of analyzing the movements of an asymmetric body with a restricted range of movement (ROM).

While the above are general advice for coaches for training athletes with disabilities, we now discuss athletes with specific disabilities and their particular needs that coaches must incorporate into training. These athletes with specific disabilities are visually-impaired athletes, athletes with amputations, athletes with neurological conditions, athletes with cognitive disabilities and athletes who are deaf.
Visually-impaired athletes
Most of the studies related to visually-impaired athletes suggest that athletes who are visually-impaired are prone to inactivity throughout their life span, and this is confirmed by studies focusing on children with visual impairments that indicate that they engage in less physical activity than persons with other disabilities (Lieberman & McHugh, 2001; Rimmer, Braddock & Fujiura, 1993). Moreover, they also demonstrate delayed motor development, such as poor balance and inefficient gait, which may be due to their sedentary behaviours during the developmental years (Bouchard & Tetrault, 2000; Higgs, 1990). Concomitantly, vision loss may affect skill acquisition, such as running, throwing and jumping techniques in several ways (Bouchard & Tetrault, 2000; Higgs, 1990). It is also more difficult to learn physical skills through verbal instruction than demonstration, and this limits the opportunities available to visually-impaired athletes to learn new skills (Bouchard & Tetrault, 2000).
Many athletes who are totally or partially blind are unable to use vision to determine the proper direction while running, throwing or adjusting the direction of the throws and in athletics and swimming events, visually-impaired athletes need to know when they are approaching the end of their race. The use of verbal descriptions by a coach during demonstrations is ideal, while using hand-body manipulation and brailing techniques during warm-up and skill sessions can make it easier for coaches to conduct these training sessions. Coaches should understand that sports participation by the visually-impaired athletes usually requires the use of a guide or partner. Sports like lawn bowl require assistance from a director for athletes to know and maintain the direction of their throws, while runners in athletics require a guide runner and tether (or rope) to guide the athlete to the finish line.
For field events, especially jumping events, the coach has to train a visually-impaired athlete to use step counts to estimate the length of the runaway. In swimming, it is suggested that a coach should instruct assistants to use the device called a tapper, in order to tap the back of visually-impaired athletes in swimming events, to make them aware that they are approaching at the end of the pool. In cycling events, a front rider, together with the visually-impaired athlete sitting at the back, use a tandem bicycle.
As previously mentioned, methods such as hand-body manipulation technique and brailing technique would also be beneficial in assisting a visually-impaired athlete learn new skills. For example, with regard to hand-body manipulation, a coach could manipulate the athlete`s limbs in such a way as to allow the execution of a skill or movement, while brailing technique could help athletes use their kinesthetic-tactile senses to feel the movement or skill that their coach is executing.
Athletes with amputations
Amputations refer to a condition in which part or all of one or more extremities are missing. An athlete with arm or leg amputations might experience problems with balance and speed while executing running, jumping and throwing motions. Therefore, coaches must be creative when applying principles of biomechanics for these athletes. One example is when coaching an athlete or sprinter with a single above elbow (AE) amputation, performance in balance and sprinting ability decreases because without upper limb(s), the body cannot propel efficiently to generate force. Using a hand prosthesis may be a good solution but wearing a prosthesis requires good skin care, including skin checks, to avoid skin stress due to abnormal shearing forces. The same applies to leg prostheses. Using leg prostheses can increase speed of the athlete as it is biomechanically efficient.
In jumping events, athletes tend to not use leg prostheses because they are uncomfortable and the prosthesis may cause problems during jumping. It is also not advantageous to use prostheses in an event such as high jump, since the force from the amputated leg will be transferred to the jumping leg during the take-off phase. In running events, using the J-shaped prosthesis might give an advantage to the runner, especially those with below knee (BK) amputations. Oscar Pistorius (a South African runner who has double below-knee amputations and runs using carbon-fiber blades) wished to run at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 but was not allowed, due to, what were considered by some as his additional mechanical aids. He is, however, still known as “the fastest man on no legs” and has run the fastest 400 meters with a time of 46.90 seconds, and has created a phenomenon by proving that running technique is not always the same as our previous understanding from theories and books. For example, in November 2007, German professor Gert-Peter Brueggemann began testing Oscar Pistorius advantages and his study found that the artificial limb used 25% less energy than able-bodied runners to run at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. These findings were used by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to ban Oscar Pistorius from participating in the Olympics. They later reversed this decision, allowing him to compete in the Olympics, but to qualify on merit by achieving the qualifying time of 45.55 seconds in the 400meter. Pistorius did not achieve this qualifying time.
In swimming, using an artificial limb would not be advisable since it would make the swimmer experience difficulty in movement and create more drag force. However, it is vital for an amputee-athlete to use prostheses in badminton, cycling, lawn bowls, table-tennis and even archery. In throwing events, it is necessary for a shot putter or a discus thrower to use prosthetic legs in order to gain ground reaction force.
Of further interest and consideration for coaches is classification of amputation. In medical terms, amputation can be defined as surgical removal of all or part of a limb, an organ, or projecting part or process of the body. In Paralympics sports, there are various categories of disability, and in a specific category, like amputation, there are also classifications that are different to cater for each group in the amputation. In sports classifications, amputations can be defined as at least one limb missing. Missing limbs here refer to a lost functional joint or joints. Example, if a person loses a finger, he or she may still manage to lift objects, but if he or she lost all fingers, then it would be difficult to lift objects.
In sports classification, there are four (4) categories of amputations:

- Below elbow (BE) amputations- an amputation from elbow joint down to the palm.
- Above elbow (AE) amputations – an amputation from elbow joint and up to the shoulder.
- Below knee (BK) amputations – an amputation from knee joint to the foot.
- Above knee (AK) amputations – an amputation from knee joint to the hip joint.

Thus, if a person lost his or her finger or two, then he or she cannot be considered for participation in Paralympics sports.
Type of amputation certainly affects movement. Do you think an athlete who has below knee (BK) amputation will ran faster than one with above knee (AK) amputation? The higher the level of amputation, the more difficult it is for a person to walk, jog or run. Even using a prosthetic makes it difficult to maintain body balance, which can becomes even more difficult for fast movements such as running or sprinting. For example, athletes with above knee (AK) amputations have difficulties when it comes to getting a great push on the backside of the running cycle and to gain a quicker and more powerful knee drive in the swing phase on the front phase of running, since they cannot flex their knee joint. This results in a `chopping` movement. Athletes with below knee (BK) amputations will have more freedom to run, since they can flex their knee joint to gain ground reaction force to run or sprint in a balanced way.
Athletes with neurological conditions
Athletes with disabilities such as Cerebral Palsy (CP), Acquired Brain Injury (ABI), Stroke and Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) have some difficulties coordinating and controlling their movements. This is because the more severe the condition, the more likely that these athletes will also experience limitations in functional range of motion (ROM). The coach`s aim is to help these athletes achieve greater motor control and greater flexibility.
CP describes a group of disorders that affect the development of movement and posture, causing activity limitation, and are attributed to non-progressive disturbances that occurred in the developing fetal or infant brain. The motor disorders of CP are often accompanied by disturbances of sensation, cognition, communication, perception, and/or behaviour and/or by a seizure disorder (Bax, Goldstein & Rosenbaum, 2005). CP can be classified by motor involvement and its distributions or pattern. The most common patterns are spastic. Coaches should be aware that some components of movement such as balance, coordination and muscle tone of spastic athletes are affected by their condition and appropriate training programmes should be designed for them. It is recommended that if spastic athletes experience problems in balance while in a standing position during stretching, the coach should allow them to perform stretching in a seated position or receive balance assist from others.
Athletes with paraplegia can utilise their upper limbs to do exercise, whether using isokinetic machines, resistance bands or and passive stretching. This is to enhance their fitness level, blood circulation and also prevent blood pooling especially at the lower limbs. Paraplegic athletes should also avoid sitting too long on wheelchair, since it will lead to the development of pressure sores that can be detrimental to their health.
For athletes with disabilities who are involved in the sport of Boccia, integration of strength training into their programme would be vital. Persons with lower-limb disability who have to rely on manually propelled wheelchairs for locomotion, have a limited mobility and range of action compared to able-bodied individuals. It is, therefore, suggested that wheelchair mobility of disabled athletes can be optimised by improving the vehicle mechanics of the wheelchair, adjusting the wheelchair design to be appropriate for the user, as well as improving the individual`s functional capacity (Thibout, Smith & Labanowich, 1996). In this respect, the assessment of cardio respiratory fitness of wheelchair users has emerged as an important area of interest in the field of sports performance evaluation. Using an arm-crank ergometer or modified shuttle run test can be used to assess those athletes with paraplegia and tetraplegia, with neurological conditions or spinal cord damage.
In order to produce aerobic effects, the amount of effort expended by athletes with some disabilities may have to be greater than that required for athletes without disabilities. Hooker and Wells (in Fox, 2000), for example, found that producing training effects for persons with spinal cord injuries requires higher maximal heart rate levels than the general population.
For athletes with SCI, using resistance training such as bands and cords could help them develop a better feel for the desired movement. SCI athletes, who use sport/racing wheelchairs can propel them well, provided that they have upper body strength. Coaches have to make sure that the paraplegic athletes can throw using the rotation of their waist because some higher classes of SCI athletes depend only on their arms and wrists to throw. Some SCI athletes lose their thermoregulation system function due to their high level of spinal injury. The higher and more complete the spinal cord damage (above T6), the greater the strain to the cardiovascular system and temperature regulation system when the body is exposed to heat (Gehlsen, Davis & Bahamonde, 1990). Most people with paraplegia do not sweat below the level of the injury (Higgs, 1990). This condition is known as poikilothermic (Higgs, 1990). The best way to deal with this condition is for the coach to advise the athlete to wrap cold towels behind the neck, which can function as artificial sweat. These athletes should not be exposed for too long in the hot sun and should drink plenty of water and always cool themselves. If training under the hot sun or in a humid environment, the coach should reduce the intensity or bout length of training and encourage the consumption of more fluid to ameliorate the effect of the heat. Another possible option would be to train in an indoor arena.
Those athletes who have high level of injury tend to loss bowel and bladder control (Gehlsen, Davis & Bahamonde, 1990), so hygiene is very important, to make the athletes comfortable during activity. A coach should make sure to provide an extra catheter and urine bag for athletes.
Also of interest to coaches of wheelchair athletes is the very low heart rates these athletes have, even with high intensity of training.
This is because many wheelchair-athletes have Spinal Cord Injury (SCI), which is damage to the spinal cord that results in loss of functions such as mobility or feeling. Immediately after the spinal cord injury, the loss of movement, sensation and reflexes below the level of the spinal cord injury can occur. Sexual dysfunction and loss of bowel and bladder control may also occur, depending on where the spinal cord injury occurred and if the spinal cord was completely severed or partially severed. The sympathetic nervous system generally excites the body by doing things such as increasing both the heart rate and blood pressure. The parasympathetic nervous system generally calms the body down by decreasing both the heart rate and blood pressure. Both sympathetic and parasympathetic systems are affected by spinal cord injury. As a result, spinal cord injury patients represent a very specific population, whose physiological responses differ significantly from those of able bodied persons (Pare, Noreau, & Simard, 1993). Coutts (1988) investigated the heart rate responses of SCI patients during several different wheelchair sport activities to investigate which activities produced the highest heart rates over sustained periods. Coutts found that the average heart rate elicited during a wheelchair basketball game was 148 bpm. This was the highest average heart rate. Other sports elicited lower rates, including volleyball (115), tennis (128) and racquetball (134). Newly spinal cord injured patients usually have a very low fitness level following hospitalisation, which put them at risk of adverse reactions to maximal training, including the risk of vertebral fractures. Coutts also stressed the need for a standardised piece of equipment such as the wheelchair ergometer to accurately predict aerobic power and establish norms for wheelchair-bound athletes. Some of their significant findings were that the maximal heart rate for paraplegic patients was only approximately 5 bpm lower than the predicted maximum. A larger upper body muscle mass allows a higher efficiency of physiological adaptation to wheelchair exercise, while a smaller muscle mass may induce inappropriate adaptations to exercise such as poor muscle blood flow, higher muscle tension and rapid contribution of anaerobic metabolism (Pare et al., 1993). This evidence makes it clear that it is important to monitor athletes with SCI to ensure they have reached their training zone or capacities, as even with strenuous training, their heart rate will not elevate above 120-140 beats per minute (bpm). It is imperative to design appropriate methods to accurately measure their training capacities.
Athletes with cognitive disabilities
Athletes with disabilities such as mental retardation, severe learning disabilities, Down syndrome, autism and dyslexia generally have physical ability to perform running, throwing and jumping motions using the correct technique. Resistance exercise programmes for individuals and also athletes with mental retardation are especially important because they have positive impacts in relation to undertaking normal activities of daily living (Draheim, Williams & McCubbin, 2002; Frey, McCubbin, Hannigan-Downs, Kasser & Skaggs, 1999). However, coaches will need to give extra attention to principles of motor learning when introducing a new skill, because these athletes tend to forget whatever skills they have recently learned (Messent, Cooke & Long, 1999). A coach should use simple, one-part or two-part direction to introduce new skills gradually and review progress frequently. Especially in running events, to describe using the right or left leg may sometimes not be easily understood by the athletes, and this makes demonstration extremely important in describing and explaining every skill. Since such athletes may not be able to read or write properly, or even differentiate between limbs well, a coach needs to explain many times until they know what to do and how to execute every skill.
Athletes with LD or intellectual disabilities will have certain levels of ability. It is preferable not to make assumptions about what they can do or cannot do, as each athlete has their own unique ability. Some even may have additional impairments such as hearing impairments. As a coach, it is important to make sure that the levels of instruction and direction that can be understood by your intellectually-challenged athletes are provided. This can be done through the use of simple, brief, concise language, while avoiding the use of jargon and complicated language. It is also suggested that coloured ribbons are used to differentiate between athletes` left and right hands. For example, you may tie different coloured ribbons to their hands and clarify that the red ribbon is on their left hand, and the blue ribbon is on their right hand.
Athletes with hearing-impairment
Athletes with hearing-impairment have the physical ability to perform running, jumping and throwing motions. However, frequent demonstrations are very useful for training and a coach should instruct these athletes to repeat the desired motions to ensure understanding of correct technique or skills that they are taught. Using peers/partners to demonstrate skills to them would be an ideal way to help them understand and learn new skills. Because of their hearing-impairment, some movement that involves balance may be affected and this should be considered by a coach when designing training programmes. A coach should also remember to teach the athlete to use flag or light or cues such as writing on a piece of paper, books, whiteboard, or even writing imagery on hands to show or communicate the right way to perform particular skills. Learning sign language by a coach is not necessary but knowing some important cues would make it easier to undertake training sessions. Using methods such as video recording, interpreters, illustrations and pictures would be beneficial for a coach to train the hearing-impaired.
A coach should learn to recognise non-verbal cues such as posture, facial expressions, gestures and movements and also observe the athlete`s response to instructions, explanations, and/or demonstrations to help them learn new skills. During verbal communication, a coach should position himself or herself so that the athlete can see them. A lot of messages can come from a coach`s facial expressions and body movements. The message should be clear, concise and presented in an interesting manner through demonstrations or sign language. Modeling can also be a good way to teach skills to enhance the performance of athletes with hearing-impairment, by instructing them to observe quality performances by others. It is better for a coach to allow athletes a few minutes to observe new drills from a model and try to ensure that you use competent models so that the athletes copy the desired movements or drills effectively. A coach should avoid or reduce some activities that focus on movements such as agility and balance since balance may be affected due to their disability.
Performance enhancement
Satisfaction with performance appears to be of vital concern to athletes with physical disabilities. To date, most research is performed by biomechanists, particularly those interested in wheelchair propulsion. Higgs (in Gehlsen, Davis & Bahamonde, 1990) found that proficiency in wheelchair racquetball corresponded with `greater distances covered per rally, greater wheelchair speed and a higher degree of maneuverability”. He also stated that peak velocity of a hand-pushed wheelchair is influenced by a variety of interrelated factors, including stroke frequency, range of contact of the handrim and the percentage of time in contact with the handrim. It also appears that the greater the stroke frequency, the greater the range of contact on the handrim, and the less time in contact with the handrim, the greater the peak velocity of the wheelchair. Another study by Gehlsen (in Fox, 2000) demonstrated that changes in trunk position produced greater peak velocity among wheelchair athletes.
Conclusion
Most of the suggestions in this article are not intended to offer complete explanation or detail techniques for coaching athletes with disabilities. There are many things that coaches have to consider and acquire knowledge on through research and education that would be ideal for them to help athletes with disabilities to improve their performance. Most of the research findings are on able-bodied athletes and coaches may not be able to apply these findings directly to athletes with disabilities. It is, therefore, important for coaches of disabled athletes to find aspects of the available research on able-bodied athletes that they can transfer into sport programmes for athletes with disabilities. Research related to sport and physical activity offers important, practical information for people with disabilities to enjoy and excel in sports. People with disabilities should be able to choose to participate in separate or parallel sports and leaders or coaches of these activities must be kept informed about scientific developments in training of disabled athletes to help them improve their competitive performance.
References
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Lieberman, L. J., Byrne, H., Mattern, C., Fernandez-Vivo, M., & Robinson, B. (2006). Passing rates on the Brockport physical fitness test for children with visual impairments. Salt Lake City, UT: American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation & Dance.
Lieberman, L. J, & McHugh, B. E. (2001). Health-related fitness of children with visual impairments and blindness. Journal of Visual impairment & Blindness, 95, 272-286.
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Contact
Nagoor Meera Abdullah
Faculty of Sports Science and Recreation,
University Technology MARA, Malaysia
Shah Alam, Malaysia
Email: nameera_ab@yahoo.com.my
Sport and Physical Education after the Cheetah Legs
Gregor Wolbring
Introduction
European citizens often see sport as an important vehicle to transmit essential values such as team work, discipline or friendship, to fight against all types of discrimination and to promote ethical and social values. Indeed, participation in sport is seen to have much health, social, economic and environmental benefits including for self-concept, self-esteem, reduced depressive symptoms, decreased stress and anxiety, improved self-acceptance, changes in anti-social behaviour and enhanced psychological well-being (CPRA, 1997; Torjman, 2004). According to the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), sport is of particular relevance to people with disabilities and how they live their lives; it is seen as beneficial to the physical body, the independence of the disabled person but also beneficial to integrating disabled people into society (IPC, 2008). The European Parliament resolution on the situation of people with disabilities in the enlarged European Union: the European Action Plan 2006-2007 (2006/2105(INI) states: “The European Parliament, stresses the important role of sport as a factor for improving the quality of life, self-esteem, independence and social integration of people with disabilities” (European Parliament, 2006). Canada has an active strategy to increase the participation of people with disabilities in sport, physical activity and recreation (Canadian Heritage SCB, 2008). Yet although there 12.4% of the Canadian population have a disability, they represent only 1% of the membership of National Sport Organisations (Canadian Heritage SCB, 2008). Attitudes of disabled and so called non-disabled people towards sport is more or less the same at college level (Delforge, 1973). According to Brittain, “experiences of physical education within school have a long-term effect upon the participation, or otherwise, of individuals with disabilities in sport in later life” and schools play “a role in constructing self-perceptions of sport and physical education in relation to people with disabilities” (2004). Several international treaties, charters, conventions and declarations address the issue of discrimination in sport, including discrimination against people with disabilities (Burchfield, 2008; Shafallah Forum on Sport Ability, 2008; United Nations, 2007). To quote from a UN Chronicle Online Edition “Persons with disabilities have the right to participate in sporting and recreational activities at all levels; organising and participating in sports; receiving the necessary instruction, training and resources; and accessing sporting, recreational and leisure venues. In addition, children and youth with disabilities have the right to play and the right to equal access in sporting, recreational and leisure activities, including those within the educational system” (Farkas, 2004). Although, many perceive inclusion into sport disciplines as essential for people with disabilities, this endeavour encounters various problems (European Parliament, 2007; Sherrill, 2004). So far, most of the troubles that many disabled people have experienced in regard to equal access in sporting, recreational and leisure activities is based on the reality that the physical environment, the design of sport events, physical education and high school team sports are tailored towards species-typical functioning. This has left disabled people as outsiders who do not take part in sport activities or disabled people have had to participate in sports performed by other disabled people, in a segregated fashion.
Recently, a controversy appeared around the participation of disabled athletes in Olympic sport events, which was based on the fact that therapeutic body devices developed to mimic species-typical body structures and expected body functioning, as a side effect, increasingly allowed the wearer to outperform the species-typical body in various functions. A lot of attention has been generated by the `cheetah` prosthetic legs worn by the South African Paralympic Amputee Oscar Pistorius and his demand to be allowed to try out for the South African Olympic team. His therapeutic device the `cheetah legs` were labelled as a `techno doping` enabling device (Jones & Wilson, 2009; Wolbring, 2008) as they were seen to be able to give him an unfair advantage over so-called non-disabled athlete. So far, the focus around Pistorius and his `Cheetah legs` has increased speculation about the relationship between the Olympics and Paralympics and their future. However, various athletes with disabilities in many sport disciplines use `Cheetah legs`. Indeed, they are not just worn by Pistorius but by various Paralympic athletes and not just in racing but in various other sport disciplines. They are also already used outside sport such as by Aimee Mullins using it on the catwalk (TED Talks, 2010; Romon, 2010). Cheetah legs are already worn by children (searching4surf, 2011) and the elderly (YouTube, 2011) and prosthetics exist that enable amputees to go back to active military duty (Pitman, 2010) and more are under development for that purpose (Tobin, 2011). Furthermore, it seems reasonable to expect that more `enhancement enabling therapeutic devices` will be developed for and used by people with disabilities in the future. Indeed, people with disabilities are seen to play a key role in mainstreaming and increasing the acceptance of body techno enhancement (Hughes, 2004). This raises not only questions for the Olympics and Paralympics or high performance sport but also for recreational sport, sport in high schools and physical education. This paper, however, focuses on non-high performance sport and what these enhancement enabling therapeutic devices mean for disabled students` participation in sport.
Sports and Disabled People: The Deficit
Despite the fact that sport is seen as important to how disabled people live their lives (IPC, 2008) and that it is “a factor for improving the quality of life, self-esteem, independence and social integration of people with disabilities” (European Parliamant, 2006), there a various problems. According to Sport England, disabled people are less likely to take part in sport and physical activity than so called non-disabled people although disabled people “want to be physically active and healthy by having more opportunities to take part in sport” (Sport England, 2004). Disabled people are underrepresented in sports on various levels, from participants (Brittain, 2004; Kew, 1997; Collins and Kay, 2003) to leadership positions in the sport industry (Masteralexis Pikes, Barr and Hums, 2008). Problems for disabled people also exist in schools within physical education classes. A 2007 European Parliament report on Physical Education acknowledges that many PE curricula are designed for, and favour, the physically able as does the traditional emphasis on competition leading to winning as an essential component of the PE experience. Disabled children are often excluded from out-of-school activities, mainly due to lack of transportation and the competitive nature of clubs etc – a traditional team environment. (European Parliament, 2007). According to the USA Women`s Sports Foundation, individuals with disabilities are almost three times as likely to be sedentary as individuals without disabilities (Lakowski, 2008).
Sports and Disabled People: Laws and Regulations
Beside the international treaties, charters, conventions and declarations already mentioned, national laws such as those in Palestine (Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, 1999) and the UK (Sport England, 2004) also cover sports and disabled people. In the USA, on April 7th 2008, the Maryland General Assembly passed the Fitness and Athletics Equity for Students with Disabilities Act and Maryland became the first State to pass Sports Equity Law for Students with Disabilities “that requires schools to provide disabled students with access to high school sports teams, either among themselves or with able-bodied students” (Maryland General Assembly, 2008; Carey, 2008). The law was generated to fight “a culture of exclusion and discrimination against individuals with disabilities within school systems” (Lakowski, 2008). In actuality, the bill “requires that schools ensure that students with disabilities have equal opportunities to participate in physical education and athletic programs, develop policies and procedures to promote and protect the inclusion of students with disabilities, and provide annual reporting to the Maryland State Department of Education detailing their compliance with these requirements” (Lakowski, 2008). However, many documents highlight various problems and how implementation of laws are lacking (THENAPA, 2003; European Parliament, 2007; Fitzgerald, 2009) and in some places the danger exists for disability sport to go backwards (Member of Parliament UK, 2010).
The Future of sport (non- Olympic and Paralympic) for disabled people
Doping, the hidden use of performance enhancement products with the purpose of obtaining an unfair competitive advantage, by high performance athletes has influenced sport for a long time and is under intense scrutiny. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) works towards a vision of the world that values and fosters a doping-free culture in sport (WADA, 2010). However, a 2007 literature review performed on behalf of WADA (Backhouse, McKenna, Robinson and Atkin, 2007) finds very few studies that looked at doping within the context of high schools.
Therapeutic `techno-doped` artificial body parts were not a topic for sport until the Paralympian Pistorius asked for permission to try out for the South African Olympic team. The story of Pistorius, as it played itself out so far, focused on three issues: a) do the therapeutic devices the Cheetah legs give him an unfair advantage and is the label of techno doping correct?; b) should he be allowed to compete directly against Olympic athletes?; and c) what does the Pistorius case mean for the relationship between the Olympics and Paralympics and the meaning of the Olympics and Olympism. The Pistorius discourse has so far missed the issue of the bionic `Cheetah legs` used in possible Olympic events (Wolbring, 2008) and it missed the impact on non-Olympic/Paralympic sport as well as the impact on disabled children in schools. The question remains as to whether the Cheetah legs are a positive game changer for the participation of disabled people in sport or not?
Therapeutic `techno-doped` artificial body parts (Cheetah legs) and school sport
Although the `Cheetah legs` are associated with Paralympic athletes, they have already moved beyond them and into society in general. `Cheetah legs` are already worn by elementary school age disabled children (searching4surf, 2011). Disabled children that are educated in mainstream schools are often not involved in school sport, whether its physical education or high school sport teams, because of “lack of appropriate infrastructure; difficulties with facility and equipment provision (50%); lack of staff expertise (21%) and resources (10%); difficulties with severity of the disabilities (15%); the lack of official policy legislation (2%) to address and to raise broader awareness of integration issues; physical barriers to access; class management inadequacies; programme content; and class sizes” (European Parliament, 2007). The report states further, “In mainstream schools, many PE curricula are designed for, and favour, the physically able. The traditional emphasis on competition leading to winning as an essential component of the PE experience can result in embarrassment, demotivation and development of negative self-concept. Competition and tradition are powerful inhibitors of change in PE with the Games discourse an anti-inclusive item” (European Parliament, 2007).
The `Cheetah legs` do not decrease the problems listed in the last paragraph however there are two exceptions. They might allow the disabled person to become part of the group of the physical able, being able to take on the normative abled person performance wise. However, the child with `Cheetah legs` will face the same issues as Pistorius. If Pistorius` legs were a techno doping device, so would be the child`s `Cheetah legs`. Disabled people can define their relationship towards the so-called non-disabled in two ways. One being that they perform their activities outside of the normative bodied and abled world (e.g. some prefer segregated schools); the other being that one wants to be with the normative bodied and abled. Pistorius` wish of wanting to run against Olympic athletes could fit into the second category. He did not ask for his own Olympic event of `Cheetah leg` racing. The author submits that if there had been a chance that the Olympic runners would have competed in the Paralympics, he would have been fine running against them there. It is less clear whether he would have still asked to run against Olympic runners if he would have been challenged more by existing Paralympic athletes. In the moment, his argument is one of wanting to be challenged; his argument is one of performance, not integration. How will the Pistorius line of reasoning play itself out at the school level? For one, in mainstream schools the chance that the `Cheetah leg` child can compete against other `Cheetah leg` children is slim, so the only competition could be against the normative able. However, if the legs` label as a techno doping device stands, they will not be allowed to compete against them either. They might run with them for leisure to fulfill sport class attendance but they could never be part of the school athletic team. Furthermore, even at the leisure level, leg-normal children might resent being outrun by the `Cheetah leg` children. Maryland became the first State to pass Sports Equity Law for Students with Disabilities `that requires schools to provide disabled students with access to high school sports teams, either among themselves or with able-bodied students” (Carey, 2008). However, the language of the law is ambiguous. There is no per se requirement to allow `Cheetah leg` student to be part of a leg-normal team. Especially if there are enough `Cheetah leg` students, they might be given their own team. At competitions between schools, one might not per se see `Cheetah leg` students being part of normal-leg student teams leading to a unified team result but the `Cheetah leg` students of different schools might compete against each other in separate events. However, according to the Women`s Sports Foundation (Lakowski, 2008) neither the National Federation of State High School Associations nor the NCAA officially sanctions any intercollegiate or interscholastic program, event, or competition for individuals with disabilities. In the present situation, the `Cheetah leg` children might be able but have few ways to live out their ability in school sport; if they do, they run the risk of being stigmatised, as they gain abilities that people are not used to them having. It is interesting that the UK Paralympic team has the problem of a higher average age because, for example, very few wheelchair athletes are generated today within the mainstream school system (Brittain, 2004). The `Cheetah leg` children might face many of the same problems of the school wheelchair athlete and decide not to perform sport with the cheetah legs. Today, in many countries, segregated school systems still exist. In these, the `Cheetah` children can perform against each other like the Paralympic athletes perform against each other. They might also compete against other segregated schools. However, as the Pistorius story stands so far, they will not be allowed to compete as teams directly against normative able teams.
Beyond the legs
Therapeutic devices that could be classified as techno doping devices might also appear for other body parts such as arms, which would influence other sports such as Shot put, Hammer throw, Javelin throw and Discus throw. Therapeutic `techno doped` artificial body parts such as arms and legs might also be usable in swimming events, baseball, basketball, volleyball and various gymnastic events. In all of these sport disciplines, the same problems might occur. In the case of team sport, the consequences for the wearer of the techno-doped body part might even be more devastating because there has to be enough participants and enough people with the same sporting interest and same techno-doped body part in order to be able to have a team. In case people with techno doped body parts form their own events, the question is how, much recognition do these athletes receive? Brittain and others highlighted that Paralympic athletes feel undervalued (2004; EurActiv, 2006). However, if events based on techno-doped body parts become popular with the audience and sponsors, which might breed resentment among the normative able people especially at the school level where sport plays such a big role in people`s self-perception. Furthermore, the wearers of therapeutic techno-doped devices might also generate resentment from other disabled people for whom no device exists to be able to compete with the normative able.
Therapeutic `techno-doped` artificial body parts and recreational sport
How much benefit do therapeutic `techno-doped` artificial body segments impart on disabled people in regard to access and quality of experience of recreational sport? Many of the same questions raised under school sport are evident here. It all hinges on whether the `techno-doped` wearer can participate with the normative abled in the same events or whether they are forced to find other `techno-doped` people. `Cheetah legs` are already worn by the elderly (YouTube, 2011). Therapeutic `techno-doped` artificial body parts such as `Cheetah legs` could be a great advancement for the social and psychological well being of the elderly if it allows them to participate in social activity and with that, recreation and leisure sport. Then very likely therapeutic artificial body parts that cannot be labelled as techno-doped would be just as sufficient to obtain this goal.
Therapeutic `techno-doped` artificial body parts and the utility of sport
Given the problems above, the question remains as to whether therapeutic techno-doped artificial body parts lead to the involvement of disabled people in school sport, which leads to team work, discipline or friendship and will it decrease discrimination and facilitate inclusion in all aspects seen as important in sport (European Commission, 2004). Do these devices facilitate the promotion of ethical and social values through sport, seen as a priority for the European Union? Which policies will guarantee the demand of the 2007 European Commission white paper adopted for “ensuring equal access to sport for all pupils, and specifically for children with disabilities (Commission of the European Communities, 2007). How can key principles in inclusive policy of opportunity, individual needs, planning and dignity mentioned in a 2007 European Parliament report on Physical Education be achieved? (European Parliament, 2007) The problems outlined, in regard to the therapeutic techno-doped artificial body parts, pose challenges such as the mandate perceived by sportsscotland`s interpretation of the UK Disability Discrimination Act means that it places “a general duty on public bodies such as sportscotland” to:

- Eliminate discrimination and harassment on the grounds of disability;
- Promote equality of opportunity between disabled people and other people;
- Promote positive attitudes towards disabled people;
- Encourage participation by disabled people in public life; and
- Take steps to meet the needs of disabled people, even if this requires more favourable treatment.

Although favourable, there are other questions that need to be answered in the context of future essays on the Paralympic Movement and it is hoped that this work will soon be forthcoming.
Key Words: disabled people rights, Pistorius, physical education, new sciences and technologies, law, enhancement.

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Contact
Dr. Greg Wolbring
University of Calgary
Calgary, Canada
Email: gwolbrin@ucalgary.ca

A Case for the Official Merger of the Winter Paralympic Games into the 2018 Winter Olympic Games
Ted Fay
The purpose of this article is to make a case, through use of a factor analysis approach, for advocating the official merger of the Winter Paralympic Games into the 2018 Winter Olympic Games and beyond. Making such a case is based on an assessment of a number of critical change factors that are now more strongly present than ever before. Traditional arguments for greater integration and inclusion of Paralympic athletes into the Olympic Games have been most often based on a social rights-based approach (Lord and Stein, 2009). Although a rights-based approach merits serious discussion, the author will instead shift the focus in advocating for this merger by using a factor analysis of the gross economic benefits that can be gained by all key stakeholder groups through major reductions in the redundancy in operational costs by the staging of only one, 16 day Games period. The main hypothesis states that a substantial net balance can be gained in terms of revenue versus costs through more efficient planning and scheduling and utilisation of workforce including both paid and volunteer staffing. The main beneficiaries of this strategy would include the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and most notably the host Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (OCOG).
Information was drawn from secondary sources but also includes the author`s own perspectives drawn from first-hand experience that spans nine consecutive Paralympic Winter Games as a cross-country race guide (1980), head coach of United States national cross-country team (1984 – 1988), IPC Technical Delegate overseeing all Paralympic cross country skiing and biathlon competition at three Paralympic Winter Games (Albertville, 1992, Lillehammer, 1994 and Nagano, 1998), Chair of the ISOD (1988 – 1992) and then IPC Nordic Sport Section (1990 – 1996) and finally as IPC technical classifier for Paralympic cross country skiing and biathlon competition (Salt Lake City, 2002, Turin, 2006 and Vancouver, 2010).
The author, in his work Race, Gender, and Disability: A New Paradigm Towards Full Participation and Equal Opportunity in Sport (Fay, 1999), established a new theoretical framework entitled the Critical Change Factors Model (CCFM) to serve as a coding structure to be able to bring a large field of data under some level of control, coherence and readability, thus minimising the potential bias of a given researcher or analyst. The set of ten core factors is drawn from equity (including distributive and participatory justice), critical social (including agency) and open-systems theories. The prevailing logic behind the creation and selection of these specific principles was one of commonality or universality, rather than uniqueness to a specific identity group (e.g., race, gender or disability), organisation (e.g., the IOC, IPC or OCOG, or sport. These factors were used initially to determine differences in breakthroughs and progression towards inclusion at three primary stratification levels of (a) athletes, (b) coaches and middle-level management, and (c) senior executive or ownership of organisation and/or franchise (Fay, 1999; Fay and Wolff, 2009). The model also provides a weighting scheme for each factor into one of four categories.

- Category I - CCF is sufficient by itself to cause change;
- Category II - CCF is necessary but not sufficient by itself to cause change;
- Category III - CCF is supportive but not necessary or sufficient by itself to cause change;
- Category IV - CCF is counter-productive because it causes a reversal or regression to increased integration and inclusion of an identity group (Fay, 1999; Fay and Wolff, 2009).

Critical Change Factors Model (CCFM)
F1) Change/occurrence of major societal event (s) affecting public opinion toward ID group.
F2) Change in laws, government and court action in changing public policies toward ID group.
F3) Change in level of influence of high profile ID group role models on public opinion.
F4) Change in the level and nature of mainstream mass media`s portrayal of ID group.
F5) Change in the critical mass of ID group athletes attaining high athletic achievement.
F6) Change in attitudes of key leaders in power elites who act as catalysts for breakthroughs.
F7) Change in perceived or real economic value of ID group as assets to the ruling power elites.
F8) Change in beliefs about the medical & intellectual stereotypes of ID group.
F9) Change in hiring practices toward ID group related to managerial and leadership roles.
F10) Change in use of strategic processes by power elites to effect greater integration.
(Fay, 1999, p. 42)
FIigure 1: Critical Change Factors Model (Fay, 1999)
A merger of the 2018 Winter Paralympic and Olympic Games into a single, 16 day event period, would represent a major paradigm shift that would be likely need to be facilitated by many of the above ten critical change factors. The question is, however, which of the ten factors fall into the Categories I or II which mean they would be necessary to cause such a change. CCF Factors F1 – F4 have been identified by the author as falling into Category III as being supportive but not necessary or sufficient to cause change. CCF Factors F5, F6 and F7, however, have been identified as Category II level factors which mean they would be necessary to cause such a change.
The first factor that has been identified as a Category II factor is F5 that states that a change in the critical mass of ID group athletes (e.g., athletes with a disability) attaining high athletic achievement is necessary for such a change to take place. The inclusion of Paralympic exhibition events in track and field introduced for the first time in 1984 with the Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games began a series of summer and winter exhibition events spanning from 1984 to 2008, help illustrate high performance achievement by athletes with a disability through the mass media to a broad global viewership. These exhibition events combined with corresponding breakthrough Olympic participation and performances by a range of athletes with a disability (e.g., Fairhall, Abbott, Runyon, du Toit, Partyk, McKeever and others) helped reinforced the concept of Paralympians as high performance athletes (Legg, Fay, Hums and Wolff, 2009). These track and field exhibition events spanning from Los Angeles in 1984 to Athens in 2004, led a number of Paralympic athletes, coaches, national Paralympic officials and some national Olympic officials to begin to more aggressively advocate that those in track and field events and other sports such as swimming and wheelchair basketball warranted consideration for integration into the Olympic Games with full medal status (Legg et al., 2009; Brittain, 2010).
On the winter side, corresponding skiing exhibition events were held twice in alpine skiing beginning in Sarajevo in 1984 and again in Calgary in 1988, while cross country events were staged only once in Calgary in 1988 (Fay, 1989). It is worth noting that the recognition and treatment for athletes with disability who participated in the Summer and Winter Olympic exhibition events was not always consistent or the same. The reality of the 2004 Athens Games was that the athletes with disability did not receive the recognition accorded past demonstration or exhibition athletes in other sports at other Olympic Games (e.g., taekwondo, curling, freestyle skiing, short track speed skating, softball, etc). It is clear that the inclusion of Paralympic exhibition events within the Winter and Summer Olympic Games has sparked on-going heated debates as to their value and resulting impacts (Legg et al., 2009; Fay & Wolff, 2009; Paralympian, 2009).
The author of this article, who participated as a Nordic coach for the US Olympic Team at the 1988 Olympic Games, experienced firsthand that athletes with disability who participated in alpine and Nordic ski events in Calgary were housed, clothed, fed and credentialed in the same manner as all other Olympic demonstration sport athletes (e.g., short track speed skating, curling, freestyle skiing) at a level equal to Olympic athletes from their respective nations. It should be noted that all three demonstration sports in Calgary became full medal Olympic sports at subsequent Olympic Games (Fay, 1989).
Factor F6 involves a change in attitudes of key leaders in power elites (e.g., IOC, IPC and/or OCOG) who act as catalysts for breakthroughs. During the 2010 Winter Paralympic Games in Vancouver, a public debate emerged between the past and present Presidents of the International Paralympic Committee over the future form and place for the Paralympic Games. Dr. Robert Steadward, the first IPC President, suggested that putting the Olympic and Paralympic Games together would create efficiencies and let the Paralympics take advantage of public support for the Olympics. He further suggested that the natural evolution of the Paralympic movement would call for it to be included more in the Olympics. He pointed to the swelling of national pride that occurred in Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympics, while also saying it was a shame for the Paralympics to have to "re-energise" the city 10 days later (Battistoni, 2010).
It should be noted that this was not the first time for Steadward to posit the concept of more integration and inclusion into the Olympic Games. Early in his tenure as IPC President, Steadward formed a Commission for the Inclusion of Athletes with a Disability (CIAD), which successfully lobbied for the integration and full medal status of Paralympic sports and events into the Commonwealth Games (Steadward, 1994; 1996). Such inclusion mirrored efforts at the time in the early 1990s based on efforts and momentum established in the late 1980s for more full integration of athletes with disabilities into national governing bodies of Olympic sports and full medal participation in national and world championships in select Paralympic sports (DePauw & Gavron, 2005).
Presenting a counterpoint in 2010 to Steadward`s stated desire for full inclusion was Phil Craven, current President of the International Paralympic Committee. Craven rejected the idea of ever combining the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games into one mega-event, saying the Paralympic movement is doing just fine as it is. Craven, who succeeded Steadward in 2001, said the Paralympics had become a force of their own over the last decade and would be diminished if they were melded with the Olympics. "Any coming together would, I think, by its very nature, be restrictive from a logistics point of view. We have it as we like it at the moment, and we don`t see any need to change. We believe by having the Paralympics and the Olympics separate, we`re able to have our own identity while coming together in a festival of sport that gives a wonderful face to the world of what sport can do” (Battisoni, 2010).
As stated in the same article by Battisoni, Craven wasn`t the only person who supported this view. Gilbert Felli, IOC Executive Director for the Olympic Games, said the IOC and IPC had worked out an agreement that allows the IOC to assist the IPC in staging its Games. Felli supported Craven`s position by emphasising that putting the Olympic and Paralympic Games together would only hamstring the staging of the events, resulting in fewer Paralympic athletes being able to participate in the Games. Craven also dismissed the idea that the Paralympics should or could be held several weeks in advance of the Olympics in an effort to take advantage of the 10 000 media and broadcasters who descend on an Olympic host city. It is a well documented fact that few journalists are inclined to stick around 10 days to two weeks after the conclusion of the Olympic Games for the Paralympics. Craven further stated his desire to have the Paralympics stand on their own merit by saying "I believe the Paralympic Games have to attract the media in their own right” (Battistoni, 2010).
On July 6, 2011 at the 123rd Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) held in Durban, South Africa, history will record the vote of 115 IOC members as they select the host for the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games from the three finalists: Munich, Germany; Annecy, France and PyeongChang, South Korea. Based on its previous efforts to host the Games in 2006, 2010 and 2014, along with its top rating among the three candidate cities by the IOC Evaluation Commission, PyeongChang is the anticipated favourite to finally win its right to host on its third try (Sports Pro, 2010c).
Factor F7 involves a change in perceived or real economic value of identity group (e.g., Paralympic athletes, Paralympic Games) as assets to the ruling power elites. (e.g., IOC, IPC and/or OCOG). This factor has a least three main components. The first has been the development and implementation of the IOC – IPC Agreement of 2001 and put into effect for the first time at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. The further evolution and integration of games management (OCOG), sponsorship (TOP Program and OCOG sponsors) and IOC broadcast rights holder including host broadcaster in staging the Games (Mickle, 2010).
The second is the increased subsidisation and financial support to national Paralympic teams and the professionalization, including bonuses, for winning Paralympic medals from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and China that is on par with corresponding support for Olympic athletes from each of those respective countries. This can be best illustrated by Prime Minister Vladamir Putin`s remarks contrasting the success of the Russian Winter Paralympic team against the failure of the Russian Olympic team at the 2010 Vancouver Games (Bratensky, 2010).
The third aspect of this critical change factor F7 is the creation of a rationale that examines the actual burgeoning costs of staging a separate Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games with the unique logistical possibilities based on scale and scope of integrating the Winter Paralympic Games inside the preceding Olympic Games. Data from the 2010 Vancouver Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (VANOC) reveals that 2 622 athletes from 82 nations participated in 86 events in 15 sports over a 16 day period from February 12 – 28, 2010. Correspondingly, 502 athletes from 44 nations participated in 64 events in 5 sports over a 10 day period from March 12 – 21, 2010. The common Olympic and Paralympic sports were alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, curling and ice sledge hockey (VANOC, 2010).
Thus, a quick analysis reveals that a combined Games in 2010 would needed to have accommodated the needs of a new total of 3 124 athletes with corresponding support staff. The costs for housing, food, transportation, staff support and other necessities for this integration would be transferred from the same requirements and expenditures necessary for hosting two separate Games and thus have a significant net balance due to the actual reductions and savings by eliminating redundancies required for hiring staff and volunteers for a 14 day period covering the Winter Paralympic Games (Preuss, 2008; Rosner and Shropshire, 2011; VANOC, 2010).
It is also worth noting that there would be no increase in the number of nations participating, no increase in the number of sports that need to be accommodated with competition venues, slight increases in games management staff, venue volunteers or games officials and no demonstrable increases in media, sponsor and other hospitality-related support required. A huge savings would be incurred by the elimination of two Opening and two Closing ceremonies. This position appears to be not supported by Gilbert Felli, IOC Executive Director for the Olympic Games, when he stated in an interview during the 2010 Olympic Games that “putting the Olympic and Paralympic Games together would only hamstring the staging of the events, resulting in fewer Paralympic athletes being able participate in the Games” (Battisoni, 2010). His comments focused on logistical issues and potential threats to levels of participation of athletes with a disability and made no reference to the potential economic benefits associated with such a change.
The cost to each of these bidding cities during this latest bidding cycle for the 2018 Games is estimated to range between USD$21 - $42 million just for the privilege of being a candidate city (Sports Pro, 2010b). Since this article was written in advance of this vote, the author has taken the liberty to use PyeongChang for the purposes of this case for the official merger of the Winter Paralympic Games into the Olympic Games. It is currently estimated that projected revenue/cost estimates of the 2018 Games in Korea will be USD$651 million. These revenue/cost estimates do not account for the existing sport and support service infrastructure in the form of sport venues, transportation and other hospitality-related capital projects that are already in place as a result of PyeongChang`s three previous Winter Olympic bids and thus can be assumed to be primarily operational costs (Sports Pro, 2010a; 2010b).
Holger Preuss in his landmark book, The economics of staging the Olympics: A comparison of the Games 1972 – 2008 (Preuss, 2004) expressed the inherent difficulties in trying to forecast the actual costs of hosting seven years away from the start of the Games. It also does not take into full account the potential volatility in global economic markets such as a recession or hyper-inflation, valuation or devaluation of key currencies (e.g., U.S. dollars vs. the Euro vs. the Yen vs. the Yuan), and greatly increased costs of security necessitated by an uncertain and hostile world which is particularly heightened by a very unpredictable neighbour in North Korea who the Republic of Korea (ROK) is still technically and occasionally actively at war with. Strong evidence exist that one or more of these factors can wreck havoc with the best laid plans of any Olympic-Paralympic Organising Committee (Preuss, 2008; Rosner & Shropshire, 2011).
The potential value of reducing and containing fixed costs of hosting the Games is therefore considered as the primary weighted factor (F7) in presenting the case for the merger of the 2018 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games within the traditional 16 day Olympic Games period. In examining the financial data from a number of official and unofficial sources related to the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Vancouver, it is difficult to find costs for each Games period broken down (VANOC, 2010).
Thus, for the purposes of this paper, a simple comparative will be used for factoring a percentage cost per athlete based on 2010 participation against the estimated cost of staging the 2018 Winter and Paralympic Games as provided by the PyeongChang Olympic Bid Committee. If the projected operational costs of the 2018 Games is estimated to be USD$651 000 000 divided by 3 124 athletes yields a projected cost of $208,386 of related incurred costs on a per athlete basis. Using this basic assessment, one could postulate that the savings yield of a combined Games would be an estimated USD$104 million. This does not include a more sophisticated modeling of other efficiencies that could be gained by eliminating operational redundancies in staging two Games or posit potential increased revenues that could be potentially realised (Preuss, 2008).
References
Battisoni, P. (2010). No need to combine Olympic and Paralympic Games, chief insists. Vancouver Sun, March 12, 2010. Available at: (http://www.olympics-now.com/2010/03/12/no-need-to-combine-olympic-and-paralympic-games-chief-insists/). (accessed 12th May 2011).
Bratensky, A. (2010). Disabled athletes show up Olympic Team. Moscow Times, March 18, 2010. Available at: (www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/disabled-athletes). (accessed 11th May 2011).
Brittain, I. (2010). The Paralympic Games explained. London: Routledge.
Burton, R. & O`Reilly, N. (2010d). Assessing Vancouver after the facts, accusations, shades of truth. Sport Business Journal, 13 (19), 21.
DePauw, K. P. & Gavron, S. J. (2005). Disability sport (2nd edition). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Publishers.
Fay, T. G. (1999). Race, gender, and disability: A new paradigm towards full participation and equal opportunity in sport. Doctoral dissertation. University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Fay, T. G. (1989). Beyond the medals and fanfare: Nordic skisport – health and excitement for all. Palaestra, 6, 37 – 45.
Fay, T. G. & Wolff, E. A. (2009). Disability in Sport in the Twenty-First Century: Creating a New Sport Opportunity Spectrum. Boston University International Law Journal. 27, 2. pp. 231 - 248.
International Olympic Committee (2010). The Olympic Charter. Available at: (http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Olympic%20Charter/Charter_en_2010.pdf). (accessed April 11th 2010).
Legg, D., Fay, T. G., Hums, M. A. & Wolff, E.A. (2009). Examining the inclusion of wheelchair exhibition events within the Olympic Games 1984 - 2004. European Sport Management Quarterly. 9, 3.
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Rosner, S. R. & Shropshire, K. L. (2011). The Business of Sports (2nd Ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. pp. 453 – 476.
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Contact
Prof. Dr. Ted Fay
SUNY Cortland
State University of New York College at Cortland
Cortland, New York
USA
Email:Theodore.Fay@cortland.edu
A Brief Review of the Literature on Media Coverage of the Paralympic Games
Brenda-Kammel Atuona
“.....cultural representations of disability or disabled people are the bedrock on which institutional discrimination rests. And until you really take that seriously.....and the majority of the media don`t, then you`re never going to change attitudes”.
(K. Cochrane, 2008)
Introduction
From the inception of rehabilitative sports competitions for ex-service men and women with spinal injuries the Paralympic Games have experienced an astounding growth. Statistics provided by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) demonstrate the extent to which the Games have grown from a small gathering of 130 athletes from two countries in 1952 to an international festival of almost 4000 athletes from 146 countries in 2008 (IPC, 2009). Considered as the summit of disability sport (Gold and Gold; 2007; Schantz and Gilbert, 2001) it has been suggested that the Paralympic Games have played a crucial role in changing attitudes by emphasising and elevating the status of disability sport where participants earn esteem as athletes in their own right, thereby challenging prevailing assumptions and stereotypes about `disability` (De Pauw and Gavron, 1995; Gold and Gold; 2007, Krahe and Altwasser, 2006).
The growing importance of the Paralympic Games has been accompanied by an ever-increasing media presence and interest (Schantz and Gilbert, 2001; Brittain, 2009). As explained by Brittain (2009) the number of accredited media representation has more than doubled over the last four Games with the IPC (2009) reporting record media attendance at the 2004 Athens Games with 2,600 representatives of the mass media (of which 1500 were press representatives), and a continuation of such a trend in the 2008 Beijing Games. Whilst this provides evidence of a dramatic progression in the spheres of disability and disability sport, the nature of coverage afforded to the Paralympic Games has been the subject of critical debate amongst numerous writers (Stein, 1989; Schell and Duncan, 1999; Schantz and Gilbert, 2001; Thomas and Smith, 2003; Sherrill, 1993, 1997; Alao, 2005). Generally, criticisms have centred on the fact that media coverage of these Games has been significantly less than that allocated to the Olympic Games (Stein, 1989; Schell and Duncan, 1999; Alao, 2005), of a pejorative and prejudicial nature (Thomas and Smith, 2003, 2009; Schantz and Gilbert, 2003) and an extension of the inequalities faced by women in society (Sherrill, 1993; Thomas and Smith, 2003, 2009).
The impact of stereotypes and imagery of the representation of disabled people by the media is a widely discussed issue (Barnes, 1992; Auslander and Gold, 1999; Thomas and Smith, 2003). This is perhaps because of the long held belief of the potential that the media has to influence public perceptions. Experimental evidence has indicated that while the mass media has little power in changing people`s opinion on issues that they have already formed a strong judgment, it has a profound affect when it comes to setting the agenda and priming people on new issues (Fog, 1999). This insight is crucial when considering the role media plays in informing members of the public who have no or limited personal experience of disability and disability issues.
Barnes in 1992 noted a growing awareness among disabled people of the resulting role media distortion of their experiences has played in their experience of institutional discrimination. He contends that negative stereotypical assumptions about disabled people are inherent to our culture and persist partly because they are constantly reproduced through the communications media. It is also important to note that as well as the tendency for the press to portray and reproduce particular stereotypical views of disabled people and their life experiences, the press is also believed to reinforce other social divisions particularly in relation to `gender` (Gill, 2006; Hermes, 1997; Gauntlett, 2002) and `race` (Lull, 2003; Hall, 1974; Hartmann and Husband, 1974; Rhodes, 1993). Yet while the gendered nature of media treatment of disabled people has increasingly been the focus of academic discourse (Thomas and Smith, 2003; Maas and Hasbrook, 2001), the specific ways in which black and ethnic minority disabled people figure in these discourses has remained largely unanalysed and untheorised.
While taking all of the above into account this paper provides a brief review of literature in and around the media depictions of athletes with disability, with recommendations for further research.
Disability, Sport and the Media
The relationship between sport and the mass media in Western societies has been characterised as a `symbiotic` one (Coakley, 2003; Trujillo, 2001) in which sports and media organisations have provided mutual resources and experienced complementary growth. The global popularity of sport is due largely to the vast attention provided by the mass media. On the other hand, circulation and advertising of sport has enabled media to achieve enormous sales as a result of this extensive treatment (Coakley, 2003). When interpreted from a critical perspective, sport media and disability intersect in interesting ways, as it is has often been argued that sport and the media function hegemonically to reproduce and reinforce dominant ideologies of social order (Trujillo, 2001; Yiannakis and Melnick, 2001). That is to say that the media coverage of sport reflects and perpetuates the dominance of leadership of non-disabled people over disabled people through pervasive expressions of held beliefs.
Exclusive of media, the very concept and construct of sport can reinforce the status of disabled people in wider society. According to Barton (1993), sport is a creation of and for non-disabled people giving priority to certain types of human movement, with a prescribed set of standards by which athletes are measured (Devine, 1997). These standards are designed, according to Brittain (2004), to highlight and revere extremes of bodily physical perfection through associations with fitness, health, dynamism, youth and sex appeal which sharply contrasts with images of sport for disabled individuals as `ill`, `lame`, `crippled`, `mutilated` individuals (Schantz and Gilbert, 2001). Indeed, Brittain (2004) agrees and contends that “disability sport [therefore] does not, apparently, provide images that fit within the norms that delineate sporting images within society” (p.448) So, within this context, the idea of elite sport for people with disabilities- who fall short of societies standards of an ideal body- is paradoxical or in Brittain`s opinion, (2004: p.438) `an anathema`. Mastro et al., (1988) also lends support to this argument as in their opinion, part of the reason for this is no culturally recognised need for competition and sports for disabled people beyond therapeutic programs which further extends the schism between the social construction of sport and traditional perceptions of disability rooted in the medical model.
A clear indicator of societal attitudes towards disability sport may be seen in the differences in time spent covering the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Schantz and Gilbert, 2001; Brittain, 2009). A comparative study of press coverage conducted by Alao (2005) indicated that of the four newspapers in her study, 926 articles were published concerning the Olympic Games in Athens 2004. In comparison, 51 articles were published concerning the Paralympic Games. In this case, the amount of Paralympic Games coverage therefore suggests that disability sports is of significantly less value than mainstream sport. This is supported by a landmark study conducted by Schantz and Gilbert (2001) who found that popular French and German newspapers reflected a generally low opinion with regards to the value of sport for disabled people. They conclude that disability sport is marginalised and trivialised in most newspapers and to some extent this appears to be the case today.
Barnes (1992) has previously noted the ways in which disabled peoples` experiences of disability are shaped by the media. In relation to coverage of disability sport studies, the use of language and terminology by newspaper journalists reaffirms traditional medicalised and individualised views of disabled people (Thomas and Smith, 2003; Schantz and Gilbert, 2001) without acknowledging the socio-genetic dimensions of disability (Barnes, 1992; Barton, 1993). For instance, Thomas and Smith (2001) highlight how Calvin (2000) describes disability as releasing `Runners….from the solitary confinement of autism… [and]….swimmers….from the chrysalis of a broken body” (p.114). They argue that in this way, disability is conceived of as an experience beyond the normal world and may be reflective of what some people across a range of societies perceive disability to be. This use of language, therefore, has the desired affect of evoking the emotion of pity, underscoring the perception of disabled peoples` lives being full of constant pain, requiring medical interventions to ameliorate their `abnormalities` (Swain and French; Thomas and Smith, 2003).
A key observation in the work of Thomas and Smith (2003) was the tendency for newspaper coverage to draw comparisons between Paralympic and Olympic athletes in a way which appeared to depict Paralympians as emulating `able-bodiedness`. In this sense, it is believed that Paralympic athletes may have been portrayed as responding to the perception held by some non-disabled people that their bodies are defective, and through sport a reformed body is created to legitimate their acceptance as people in the social world (Hargreaves, 2000; Thomas and Smith, 2003) In many ways, participation in sport and physical activity for people with disabilities is indeed a way of managing the stigma of disability (Taub et al., 1999). Nixon (1984) and Asken (1991) explain that participation aides the perception of disabled people as being no significantly different from their non-disabled counterpart. In this use of comparisons to non-disabled Olympic athletes by press journalists, as noted by Thomas and Smith (2003), could be founded in this very idea. However, it should not be dismissed as to how this idea can further undermine the attempts of disabled people to form an identity of their own and continue to build one based on the ideals of non-disabled people.
Of great concern to disability sport academics and writers is the nature of photographic coverage and the ways in which it can reinforce previously held perceptions of disability sport and disability in general. For example, it has been clearly shown that images of Paralympic athletes are often framed in a way to hide the disability (Pappous, 2008; Thomas and Smith, 2003; Schantz and Gilbert, 2001) and mostly feature wheelchair athletes to the detriment of others (Thomas and Smith, 2003; Schell and Duncan, 1999; Schantz and Gilbert, 2001; Pappous, 2008). In regards to the extensive photographic coverage of wheelchair athletes, it appears to be a reflection of stereotypical perceptions of disability being synonymous with physical immobility and wheelchair use, which according to Barnes (1992) reinforces widespread ignorance about the realities of impairment. By focusing on wheelchair athletes and constructing photos that appeared to hide an athlete`s impairment, Thomas and Smith (2003) suggest that much of the coverage denies the athlete`s identity as a person with an impairment which could ultimately disenfranchise those readers with disabilities, through focus placed on those who appear to be more physically capable of competing in sport.
As previously mentioned is the absence of research seeking to conceptualise the interaction of race and disability in sport. Hardin et al. (2006) in their study `Depicting the Sporting Body` have attempted to give voice to this issue by looking at the representation of black disabled women in sport. Hardin et al., (2006) provide a unique analysis through their examination of the relationship between images of sport, disability, gender and race in four U.S. women`s sport/fitness magazines. As was expected, non-white women with a disability were completely invisible which in their opinion emphasised an ableist emphasis on sexual difference. They also argue that black disabled women in sport are guaranteed the bottom spot of the hegemonic hierarchy because they do not conform to `white` standards of femininity but are also marginalised because of their `lack of able-bodiedness`.
Concluding Statements
From a researcher`s perspective it is important to consider the unique experiences of black disabled (male or female) athletes as race cannot simply be added to existing theoretical frameworks. The oppression of black disabled athletes is qualitatively different in kind to that of their white counterparts. However, since sport both reinforces and reproduces `persistent`, `resurgent; and veiled` forms of white power that permeate society (King et al., 2007, p.4) the targeting and removal of racist, disablist (and sexist) narratives in coverage of sport has the potential to enable Black disabled male and female athletes to envision and achieve equality within wider society.
Most of the studies that have been conducted have been researchers` analysis on coverage and therefore have a level of subjectivity and are also quite difficult to draw inferences on what the wider population may be interpreting. Millington and Wilson (2010) call for the presence of audience perceptions in the form of reception research to be more present in sport media research. The opportunity to do this is becoming more available with increasing press coverage of the Games and also more broadcasting time being devoted to disability sport. Channel 4 have promised extensive coverage of the London 2012 Paralympic Games - perhaps it is now that the reception of the audience plays a bigger role in researching ideals towards disabled people in sport.
References
Alao, B. (2005). `News Gate-Keeping` An Analysis of national British newspaper coverage of the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games through a comparative investigation of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. Unpublished dissertation submitted as part of undergraduate degree programme at the University of East London.
Asken, M.J. (1991). The challenge to the physically challenged: Delivering sport psychology services to physically disabled athletes. The Sport Psychologists, 5, 370-381.
Auslander, G.K. and Gold, N. (1999). Disability terminology in the media: a comparison of newspaper reports in Canada and Israel. Social Science and Medicine, 48, 1395-1405.
Barnes, C. (1992). Disabling imagery and the media: An exploration of the principles for media representations of disabled people. Halifax: BCODP.
Barton, L. (1993). Disability, empowerment and physical education. In J. Evans (ed.), Equality, Education and Physical Education. pp. 43–54. London: The Falmer Press.
Brittain, I. (2004). Perceptions of Disability and their Impact upon Involvement in Sport for People with Disabilities at All Levels. Journal of Sport and Sport Issues, 28, 429-452.
Brittain, I. (2009). The Paralympic Games explained. London: Routledge.
Calvin, M. (2000). Great Games that carry a priceless legacy. The Daily Mail, 29 Oct. p.114
Coakley, J, 2003. Sports in Society. Issues and controversies. McGraw Hill: New York.
Cochrane, K. (2008). Miles to Go. Available at: (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/sep/18/disability.television). (Accessed 9th May 2010).
DePauw, K. and Gavron, S. (1995). Disability and Sport. Champaign: Human Kinetics.
Devine, M, A. (1997). Inclusive leisure services and research: A consideration of the use of social construction theory. Journal of Leisurability, 24, 3-11.
Fog, A. (1999). Cultural Selection. Kluwer: Dordrecht.
Gauntlett, D. (2002). Media, gender and identity: An introduction. London: Routledge.
Gill, R. (2006). Gender and the media. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gold, J.R., and Gold, M.M. (2007). Access for all: the rise of the Paralympic Games. The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, 127, 133-141.
Hall, S. (1974). "Black men, white media.” Journal of the Caribbean Artists Movement, 9-10, 18-21.
Hardin, M., Lynn, S., and Walsdorf, K. (2006). Depicting the Sportin Body: The Intersection of Gender, Race and Disability in Women`s Sport/Fitness Magazines. Journal of Magazine and New Media Research, 8, 1-17.
Hargreaves (2000). Heroines of sport: The politics of difference and identity. London: Routledge.
Hartmann, P. and Husband, C. (1974). Racism and the Mass Media. London: Davis-Poynter.
Hermes, J. (1997). No woman, no cry. In International media research: A critical survey. (edited by John Corner, Philip Schlesinger and Roger Silverstone) pp. 65-95. London: Routledge.
International Paralympic Committee. (2009). Paralympic Games: Fact and Figures. Retrieved 27/10/2009 from the World Wide Web: Available at: (http://www.paralympic.org/export/sites/default/Media_Centre/Media_Information/2009_07_Paralympic_Games_Facts_and_Figures.pdf), (accessed on 5th May 2011).
King, C.R., Leonard, D.J. and Kusz, D.W. (2007). White Power and Sport: An Introduction. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 3, 3-10.
Krahe, B. and Altwasser, C. (2006). Changing negative attitudes towards persons with physical disabilities: an experimental intervention. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 16, 59-69.
Lull, James. (2003) Hegemony. In Gender, race and class in media. (edited by Gail Dines and Jean M. Humez. pp. 61-66. California: Sage Publicaitons.
Maas, K. W., & Hasbrook, C. A. (2001). Media promotion of the paradigm citizen/golfer: An analysis of golf magazines` representations of disability, gender, and age. Sociology of Sport Journal, 18, 21-36.
Mastro, J.V., Hall, M.M. and Canabal, M.Y. (1988). Cultural and attitudinal similarities: Female and disabled individuals in sports and athletics. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 59, 80-83.
Millington, B. and Wilson, B. (2010). Media Consumption and the contexts of physical culture: Methodological Reflections on a “Third Generation” Study of Media Audiences. Sociology of Sport Journal, 27, 30-53.
Nixon, H.L. (1984). Handicapism and sport: New directions for sport sociology research. In Sport and the sociological imagination. (edited by N. Theberge and P. Donnelly. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press.
Pappous, A. (2008). The photographic coverage of the Paralympic Games, Paper presented at the Third Annual International Forum on children with special needs “sport and ability” Shafallah Centre, Doha, Qata, 20-22 April.
Rhodes, J. (1993). The Visibility of Race and Media History. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 10, 184-190.
Schantz, O. and Gilbert, K. (2001). An ideal misconstrued: Newspaper coverage of the Atlanta Paralympic Games in France and Germany. Sociology of Sport Journal, 18, 69-94.
Schell, L.A. and Duncan, M.C. (1999). A content analysis of the CBS coverage of the 1996 Paralympic Games. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 16, 27-47.
Sherrill, C. (1993). Women with disabilities, Paralympics and reasoned action contact theory. Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal, 2, 51-60.
Stein, J.U. (1989). U.S. media – where were you during the 1988 Paralympics? Palaestra, 5, 45-47.
Swain, J., French., S. and Cameron, C. (2005). Controversial Issues in a Disabling Society. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Taub, D., Blinde, E. and Greer, K. (1999). Stigma Management through Participation in Sport and Physical Activity: Experiences of Male College Students Physical Disabilities. Human Relations, 52, 1469-1484.
Thomas, N. and Smith, A. (2003). Preoccupied with Able-Bodiedness? An Analysis of the British Media Coverage of the Paralympic Games. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 20, 166-181.
Trujillo, N. (2001). Machines, Missiles and Men: Images of the Male Body on ABC`s Monday Night Football. In Contemporary issues in sociology of sport. (edited by Andrew Yiannakis and Merrill J. Melnick). Champaign IL: Human Kinteics.
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Contact
Brenda-Kammel Atuona
University of Kent
Kent, United Kingdom
Email: b.atuona@kent.ac.uk

The Centre for Inclusive Sport Studies in Madrid (Spain): An Example of Research Application in Adapted and Inclusive Sports
Javier Pérez, Javier Alonso & Javier Sampedro
Introduction
According to the European Commission (2008), social inclusion is a process that ensures that those at risk of poverty and social exclusion increase their opportunities and resources to participate fully in economic, social and cultural life as well as enjoy living conditions and welfare that are considered normal in the society in which they live. Within this complex and wide umbrella, inclusion into physical activity and sport has been linked to real practice (e.g. Students or sportsmen and women with and without disabilities together in one space, being coached and using the same resources). However, social inclusion is understood as an interaction of people with and without disabilities at home, school and community (Sherrill, 2003).
Inclusion also means allocation of services, changing people`s attitudes and developing a sense of responsibility. This is suggesting that, instead of making someone with a disability ready for society, the society should be ready or adapted for this person. In this way, we can say that inclusion is a cohesive sense of community, acceptance of differences and responsiveness to individual needs (Stainback & Stainback, 1996; in Hutzler, 2003). We know the beneficial effects of physical activity and sport on health, especially for those persons with disabilities, and in Spain there is a need to implement inclusion into the sport service, as in other fields such as labour markets or educational contexts, where this inclusion is being accomplished already. In our opinion, sport is a service, which is still not fully accessible in Spain, with very low research done into this issue, and very little attention from administrations and regular sport institutions.
Going beyond the real, effective and necessary inclusion in Physical Education of pupils with disabilities (where there is still a lot to do), other sport contexts need to be open to those with a disability. For us, the joint sport practice of people with and without disabilities is one of the most powerful tools we have for sport practice advocacy in populations with disability. At the same time, adapted sport manifestations should be more known, and should be seen as normalised practice and be made more sensitive to those disabled individuals who have some interest. More importantly, when regarding sport competition for the disabled, the national programmes in some countries like Scandinavia, Canada or Australia have regulated the integration of services for athletes with disabilities into their respective governing bodies. This implies the same treatment for these athletes as the able bodied sportsmen and women, and also the respect for their needs in order to obtain maximum performance. These processes are now starting in Spain, and there are many concerns regarding the future role of the institutions and their roles within disability sport.
In this context and trying to provide some light to the above mentioned situation, the sport experience and academic knowledge of the university have come together with private sector interests to create a referral centre for the study of the processes of inclusion in sport. During 2010, the “Centre for Inclusive Sport Institute” (CEDI) has been positioned as a fundamental institution, at the top level in Spain, for the analysis and dissemination of inclusion processes of persons with disabilities into mainstream sport. This has been made possible with the support from Fundación Sanitas at the institutional level, and from the Faculty of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences – INEF (Polytechnic University of Madrid) at the administrative, academic and scientific levels. The agreement implies joint undertaking between these institutions for their common investment in this wide and unexplored field of action. From this agreement, the academic and scientific impact of every action of the CEDI is grounded in the most up-to-date and contrasted expertise regarding sport sciences as it applies to physical activity and sports for persons with disabilities and, even more importantly, advocating the real inclusive practice within all sciences.
After the signing of the agreement between the two institutions (October 28th, 2009), the first step of the Centre has focused primarily on the following:

- To make the CEDI the reference and inspiration at the academic/scientific level regarding dissemination of research knowledge and best evidence-based-practices in Inclusive - Adapted Physical Activities and Sport for disabled people, while focussing on health promotion.
- To position the CEDI as a reference at the institutional, academic and scientific level, with the best quality standards possible, in the framework of the “Strategic Alliance for Inclusive Sport”, headed by Fundación Sanitas across the whole country.

The CEDI`s vision is to analyse and to spread the benefits, at all levels, of inclusive - adapted physical activity and sports for persons with disabilities through the awareness of responsible agents and institutions, offering opportunities for actual practice, empowerment and knowledge up-dating. This vision has inspired the development of four action lines into the centre: research, teaching and training, activities and visible actions. The CEDI has been fully active in the four of them. This article presents concrete actions related to every area and the achievements of the CEDI project during this year, following the determined lines of action.
Research and Knowledge Exchange
Regarding research, (line 1), the CEDI is leading 2 research projects and is a collaborator in another 2. The main one, led by the CEDI, is already completed. This was the “Analysis of sport habits of persons with disability in Spain (APRADDIS)”, which resulted from a public research call by the High Council for Sport. This project analyses the levels of practice and benefits of physical activity in persons with disability from an inclusive perspective. Another project led by the CEDI is the “Evaluation of reaction time in sprinters with normal hearing and impaired hearing” (in progress). The CEDI is collaborating at the international level in one multi-country research project in the “Leonardo Da Vinci” European Commission programme, named “Adapted Physical Activity in Vocational and Educational Training” (APAVET, from October 2010 to June 2012). Moreover, together with the Higher Sport Council and the Spanish Paralympic Committee, the CEDI has analysed the integration processes at the international level through the project “Integration processes in sport: the case of Para-cycling at the international level”. Two calls for PhD student scholarships has been delivered, which focus on the issues of inclusion into sport by individuals with a disability.
Training and Teaching
In the area for training and teaching (line 2), the CEDI has adapted and translated the European Inclusive Physical Education Training (EIPET) documentation into the Spanish context, which is a key milestone in the education and training of physical education teachers in the actual inclusion and participation of pupils with disability in physical education classes. Together with the Spanish Paralympic Committee, the CEDI has developed the “Information Resource Centre on Paralympic Sport” located at the library of the Faculty of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences (INEF), as a unique forum for the location of and access to all the information generated regarding Paralympic Sport in Spain. Even more, the CEDI has been represented in 6 postgraduate or masters courses in sport sciences training modules, acceding to the highest standards of university training. Finally, the CEDI is a place for practical tutorials for postgraduate pupils, focusing on integration processes.
We are also involved in forums and congresses. For example, during its first year of life, the CEDI was invited to 16 congresses and conferences (6 of them at the international level), and we have participated in another 6 more (with oral or poster presentations). In total, more than 20 presentations have been delivered. The number of actions, and especially, the quality standards achieved, has given the CEDI the most relevant and influential role in Spanish sport. For example, technical advice was provided for coordinating the scientific committee for the “Second Spanish Conference of Adapted Sport” (Valencia, February 2011), which was organised by the Spanish Paralympic Committee, the Higher Sports Council and the University of Valencia, who coined the conference title “Integration processes at international level: Suggestions in the Spanish context” (2011). Also, the “I National Conference on Adapted Cycling” (May 2011), organised by the Community of Madrid, has been coordinated at the scientific level by CEDI.
Moreover, the CEDI has been present throughout these months in 6 different postgraduate courses regarding research into sport sciences related health, disability, sport and applied research. 5 training courses regarding inclusive sports have been organised in this time period, for example, an undergraduate specialisation into “Inclusive Physical Activities” for sport sciences students, which was included in the continuing education programmes of the Community of Madrid`s government.
Activities
Regarding activities (line 3), the CEDI has organised 3 inclusive sport activities and has collaborated in another 5, some of them as one-off (one day) events and some together with other institutions in promoting sport for children with disabilities in inclusive settings. According to the CEDI philosophy, we find activity development the ideal context for training and community awareness raising so in 3 of the technical and training courses developed, activities were also included. In this regard, the “III Inclusive Basketball Camp” was organised by the Real Madrid Foundation and the CEDI´s collaboration in April 2011, with the participation of 48 children (23 of them with physical disabilities) in an ideal context of inclusive practice for the promotion of health, life skills and values through basketball practice (see photo 1).
At the same time, space for new sports has been generated from an inclusive perspective. For example, electric wheelchair hockey has been developed at the regional level and “windreamer”® and inclusive kite sports (see photo 2) have also been used for inclusive sport promotion.
Photo 1: Practice at the Inclusive Basketball Camp. Photo 2: Windreamer ® inclusive practice.

The double scope of the CEDI (best knowledge and best practices) has been presented and disseminated through all actions in the different lines of intervention, but particularly through the most important activity developed: the “Inclusive Sport Week”. This activity marks the real launch and presentation of the CEDI into society. This brand new and fresh activity to promote inclusive sports, which mixes the best theory and practical session, with more than 20 speakers, 10 sport coordinators, 50 sportsmen and women with and without disability from the selected sports (hall soccer, inclusive hockey, inclusive basketball and inclusive tennis) and more than 200 participants.
Held from 25th to 29th October, 2010, the activity itself was structured in theoretical and inclusive practical sessions. Theoretical sessions were developed for the morning gathering, always about relevant and current topics. These included inclusive physical education, health related sport practice for persons with disabilities, accessibility into sport services and integration processes from disability to mainstream sport. In the afternoon, actual inclusive practice was performed, with the collaboration of disability associations (Fundación ONCE), sports institutions (Real Madrid Foundation), or sport clubs and national federations. The practices were one per day, with professional exhibitions in the afternoon, followed by colleges` participation and children`s inclusive practices. Sports like blind soccer (see photo 5), inclusive (electric wheelchair) hockey, inclusive basketball (see photo 6) and inclusive tennis (see photo 4) were practiced.
The “Inclusive Sport Week” finished with the participation of the best possible rolemodel of inclusion in sport worldwide: the South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, who presented a keynote presentation at the conference during Inclusive Sport Week (see photo 3). This was, in our opinion, the best event ever in Spain for the promotion of inclusive sport, and the involvement of key institutions and the presence of some of the best sportsmen and women, with and without disability in Spain. For example, Vicente del Bosque (national soccer coach) and the aforementioned Oscar Pistorius. Participants evaluated this activity as excellent.
Photo 3: Oscar Pistorius’ keynote presentation at the Inclusive Sport Week.
Photo 4: Practice of Inclusive Tennis.
Knowledge dissemination and action visibility
In this line (4), the CEDI has been present in the media, written press, newspapers, institutional newsletters and radio interviews. Special coverage was developed for the presentation of the “Strategic Alliance for Inclusive Sport” (October 4th, 2010) and during the above mentioned “Inclusive Sport Week”. The first CEDI book ““Disability, physical activity and sport: Key factors for quality of life” was launched during August, 2010 and the second “Moving forward together towards integration” was presented this past March, 2011. For the CEDI, expert knowledge dissemination and education is a priority. Especially publicity and dissemination of information relating to all activities determined in the different lines of action. The methods for dissemination are mostly through the CEDI´s website, press releases, newsletters info, emailing and hard copy publication material.
Importance of institutional collaboration
The CEDI is playing a determined role, having a real and inspiring presence on the most knowledgeable platforms related to sport and disability in Spain. In this regard, at the scientific level, it has been requested to be present or collaborate in research projects and activities regarding the topic. For example, the CEDI has been cited greatly in the newspapers and is related to one of the most influential institutions of Physical Activity and Sport for persons with disability: the International Federation of Adapted Physical Activity (IFAPA). Dr. Yeshayahu Hutzler, its President, is one of the CEDI external experts.
At the same time, the CEDI is present in the main forums related to integration in sport, a “hot spot” nowadays in the Spanish sport context. The Spanish Paralympic Committee is leading these processes and the CEDI is working together with it organising conferences, manuals and actual inclusive activities: for example, the future implementation in Spain of the “Paralympic School Day” programme. The Higher Council for Sport, which is the main institution regarding sport in Spain, is also a partner in some projects. For instance, the development of a good practice manual regarding integration processes into sport. Both of these key institutions include the CEDI in their newsletters and websites.
Finally, at the institutional level, great success was achieved with the presentation of the “Strategic Alliance for Inclusive Sport” (October 4th, 2010). Fundación Sanitas presented its strategic plan with the participation of key partners: Spanish Paralympic Committee, Higher Council for Sport, Telemadrid, Madrid City Council and Real Madrid Foundation. This event was a social presentation of the Fundación Sanitas strategy for forthcoming years, with the CEDI as a core component, regarding the grounding of inclusive actions in sport, from a research and best practice perspective.

Photo 5: Inclusive blind soccer practice. Photo 6: Inclusive basketball
Conclusion
With these initial steps, the CEDI project has been definitively launched in the 4 different lines of action. Partner institutions are being inspired by the CEDI project and supporting it fully. The CEDI has attained a position at the highest scientific, academic and institutional level in the development of inclusive physical activities and sports in Spain. However, many steps still have to be taken in order to promote inclusion in sports as a key tool for normalisation and as a way to enhance participation of persons with disabilities into real and effective sport practice.
References
European Commission (2008). Joint Report on Social Protection and Social Inclusion 2008: Social inclusion, pensions, healthcare and long-term care. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Luxembourg: p.119.
Hutzler, Y. (2003). “Attitudes toward the participation of individuals with disability in physical activity: a review”. Quest, 55, p.p. 347-373.
Sherrill, C. (2003). “Should social inclusion be a major goal of physical education”? Palaestra, 19, p.p.52-56.
Contact
Javier Pérez,
Universidad Politecnica de Madrid
Madrid, Spain
Email: j.perez@upm.es
Javier Alonso
Universidad Politecnica de Madrid
Madrid, Spain
Email: j.alonso@upm.es
Javier Sampedro
Universidad Politecnica de Madrid
Madrid, Spain
Email: j.sampedro@upm.es

Current Issues

Introduction to the Optimal Coordination Order (OCO) System - The Innovative Way for Developing Individual Coordination Ability for Sport Arts
Mark Wertheim

Introduction
In different science disciplines, we find different definitions of coordination. Most definitions focus on the developmental aspects, for example, developmental coordination is defined as children who have the motor competence to cope with the demands of everyday tasks (Missuna, 2006). Approximately 5-6% of school-aged children, however, have a neuro-developmental condition called Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) and are at risk for a number of secondary academic, social and self-concept difficulties (Missuna, Moll & King, 2006).
There have been many articles written and research undertaken in child development that relates to children`s health and health problems presenting the connection between coordination and behavior. For example, DCD as the main problem has been found to have co-morbidity with:

- Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (50%)( Fogas & Fiechtner, 2002 in Bart.o.& Podoly ,T.& BarHaim,y. 2010)
- Language based learning disabilities (+50%)( Dewey, 2002 in ; Jongmans,M.J.&Smith-Engelsman,B.C.M& Schoemaker,M.M(2003)
- Specific language impairment (40-90%) Gaines & Missiuna,(2006)
- Non-verbal learning disabilities (NLD).

Based on the research, we can highlight the difficulty with identifying the causes of major childhood disorders.
In recent child coordination development studies, we find comparisons between today`s children and children of 20 years ago. For example, now:

- Every second child aged 10 years cannot stand on one leg for 30 seconds (Weineck, 2003).
- Every third child aged 6 years has difficulty with movement, coordination reaction time, rope jumping, ball catching and throwing (Flehmig, 2000 in Wutz 2006 ).
- Every third child aged 6 years cannot walk backwards or jump on one leg (Flehmig, 2000 in Wutz 2006).
- Every tenth child aged 10-12 years falls down while biking in a circle or had balance difficulties or a lack of coordination (Deutsche Verkehrswacht, 2002 in Wutz 2006).

In sport sciences, on the other hand, there are several definitions for coordination. Despite the awareness of coordination amongst sport sciences and those in the sports field, the definitions `primarily relate to physical condition and specific sport technique. Among them, we can find:

- Movement co-ordination is the overall principle of adjusting all processes of one motor act according to the goal of that movement action (Meinel & Schnabel, 1998).
- Co-ordination is the ability to apply specific movements with as little strength effort and as fast as possible according to the situation (Dangel, 1993in Neumaier 1999)
- The word “co-ordination“ comes from the Latin “cum ordo“, which means “in order“. This implies that everything that follows a certain order is coordinated. Order presupposes regulations/rules and guidelines to which an action is carried out (Neumaier, 1999).

OCO System - an innovative approach for integration between sport sciences, health and education
The Optimal Coordination Order (OCO) System is committed to inter- and multi-disciplinary research and applies the research results into pedagogic models suitable for children, based on health and sport goals.
The OCO promotes coordination as a basic ability for everyday activities, sport and physical education.
The traditional sports point of view concentrates only on the physical aspects of coordination, ignoring the fact that movement is a result of coordination and is based on physical and emotional stability.
The symbiosis of physical and emotional health stability enables the child to generate an energetic economy and effective movements, to be self confident, to absorb information in a perceptive way, to create a movement memory bank, to shorten information processing time, to adapt complex information and to react in unexpected situations and/or in emotional stress situations.
The OCO is a method based on evidence from different scientific fields (Neuroscience, Neurophysiology, Brain Science) combined with sport sciences and sport training.
Within this method, coordination is the core for analysis of the child`s behaviour (physically and emotionally) and provides the appropriate solutions. Based on individual test results, a combination of systematic exercises are planned to develop the child`s achievements. These exercises encourage use of imagination when performing movements based on external /internal reactions (Wertheim, 2011).
Using the OCO method will lead the child to believe in his own abilities, also in situations that he used to think were too difficult for him. A child using OCO becomes more creative in his movements, more effective in his skills (Flexibility, Quickness, Reactive power, Endurance), will be more self confident and more dominant in his social relations.
The OCO method is a holistic approach applying interdisciplinary aspects of developing coordination of a healthy child (physical and emotional fitness) as well as a sportsman.
Figures A to E graphically describe the elements of OCO.
A - E

Conclusion
The general coordination that is built into the OCO system leads a child to better age-appropriate performances as preparation for coping with the goals of modern sport and to overcome performance gaps that may result for a child growing up in a western society.
Most of the problems in sport with children these days are their ability to transfer information, especially complex or quick information, to effective adaptation in sport technique.
The combination of emotional health and physical development in children through coordination activity in a systematic way should be more clear and understandable for all sport leaders, especially before the competition stage.
In sport, there are risks and opportunities for healthy development. Developing a wide, colourful coordination in childhood, such as for example using the OCO system, reduces the risks in sport outcomes and improves the long term chances of healthy and successful sport participation.

References
Bart.o.& Podoly ,T.& BarHaim,y.(2010) :A Preliminary on the effect of methylphenidate on motor performance in children with comobird DCD and ADHD. J. Research in Developmental Disabilities 31 p` 1443-1447.
Jongmans,M.J.&Smith-Engelsman,B.C.M& Schoemaker,M.M(2003) :Consequences of Comorbidity of Developmental Coordination Disorders and Learning Disabilities for Severity and Pattern of Perceptual - Motor Dysfunction. J Learning Disabilities, November/December 2003; vol. 36, 6: p` 528-537.
Gaines,R.& Missuna,G.(2006):Early Identification: Are Toddlers with Speech/Language Impairmenta at Increased Risk for Developmental Coordination Disorder? Published and Distributed by Canchild Center for Childhood Disability Research.
Meinel, K., & Schnabel, G. (1998). Bewegungslehre – Sportmotorik: Abriß einer Theorie der sportlichen Motorik untern pädagogischem Aspekt. Berlin.
Missiuna, C. (2006). Developmental Coordination Disorder,and Neurodevelopmental Clinical Research Unit (NCRU)*, McMaster University, Canchild.
Missiuna ,C., Moll, S. & King, S. (2006). Missed and Misunderstood: Children with coordination difficulties in the school system, International Journal of Special Education, 21:1.
Neumaier, A. (1999). Koordinatives Anforderungsprofil und Koordinationstraining: Grundlagen, Analyse, Methodik. Köln.
Weineck, J. (2003). Optimales Training: Leistungsphysiologische Trainingslehre untern besonderer Berücksichtigung des Kinder- und Jugendtrainings. Balingen.
Wertheim, M. (2011). "Koordination-ein Verbund aus Systematik und Fantasie" LSP.
Wutz,E.(2006) :"Sport, Verein und Schule" Munchner sport Jugend (Power point).

Contact
Dr. Mark Wertheim
Director Coordination Center
Haifa, Israel
WWW.OCO-GYM.COM
Email: tiaw@012.net.il

`My Everest`: The Psychology of High Intent!
Rodney D. Cooper

As an educator, thought processes start and end with an appreciation of reasoning – basic reasoning – and even advanced reasoning; understanding why something occurs and why people act as they do. Read on, for herein lies the crux of all our `regrets,` `misgivings` and `misconceptions.`
Elementary psychology deals with the views of the eminent, pre-eminent and even downright confusing. Advanced interpretations, however, deal with honesty, courage and a willingness to face ourselves – to live with and to understand our own frailties and doubts and to `own up` to frustration, conceit and even our inflated egos.
We often deceive ourselves by subjecting our conscious and unconscious behaviour to unreasonable speculation – this in an attempt to imagine that we are `better adjusted` than we really are; in a nutshell, we self-appropriate credentials that are singularly more enhancing than they really are! A way of describing this state of affairs is `self-aggrandisement` – we frustrate ourselves by pretending that life is as good as, or better than, it actually is.
Thus the view from the top seems pleasant enough, even rosy, but beware the rose- tinted spectacles – yes, we should have left them behind! Educators may be thinking that the progress of life forms a pattern, in some devious way it does, but beware the pitfalls of misconception and misunderstanding.
An understanding of Truth is gained through pers onal awareness and by a willingness not to transgress personal integrity. It was said of T. E. Lawrence (a British war hero) that he would not (necessarily) look someone in the eye, for fear of breaking down the `goodness` and candour of that person – the very thing that made the person sustainable. This is not to say that that person was prevented from an association with frankness, directness, openness, or indeed, a simplicity or ingenuousness of thought or action, in fact, the very opposite was the case. Lawrence, and people after him, endeavoured to achieve a balance between (obvious) susceptibility and confidence which allows both parties (in any `interview` or `confrontation`) to express themselves in a fair and unhampered fashion.
An understanding of psychology permits for `reciprocal enervation` – that process which allows muscles freedom of movement (without damage) and, by which freedom of speech, comprehension and understanding are achieved.
It is necessary to point out also, that in this connection, an understanding of intent is ensured, without a breach of the sanctity, or sustainability of the individual, our willingness to adhere to a frank, direct and deferential approach (like T. E. Lawrence).
Ultimately, humility is a source of inspiration; it is the main `enabler;` initially, a young (or older) person, may experience a lack of confidence and doubt or uncertainty but, that person can begin to realise his/her ambition which will ultimately translate into full and complete awareness.
Here, of course, trust is also important; trust enables an exchange of ideas to be workable; trust is another `enabler` which begets confidence and a desire for engagement, commitment and loyalty.
Thus, we move full circle – self-realisation can be achieved at the expense of pretence, false hope and aspirations which may provoke retaliation, and anger or faint-heartedness and timidity.
Blandness and mediocrity is the child of deception and mis-directed energy; full life (which is pregnant and with hope and inspiration) is to be achieved not by caprice and inconsistency but by the pursuit of courage, conviction, fidelity and veracity.
In the way that T.E. Lawrence was an example to us, so we can be a revelation to ourselves; all is to be gained by the struggle (with ourselves) and by definition, with adversity; with diligence and application to the task in hand, there will be success.
Society, in some way, encourages conformity both of attitude and action; we often submit to beliefs and actions, which can be alien to a full understanding and appreciation of truth.
The path to an understanding of truth is paved with problems but involves an awareness and an acknowledgement of the need for reasoned and rational behaviour, if we are not to be lulled into a false understanding, we need to perceive the vagaries of `detachment` but also the advantages of solitude and reflection, an acceptance of the needs of the individual is central to this understanding and it is essential for him/her to recognise and identify with such needs.
Such (personal) identification is never easy and the tasks thereof may last most of a lifetime – the route will run over many precipices but with fortitude and commitment a willingness and a striving for perfection, this eldorado (of life) will be achieved.
The `struggle` will bring satisfaction and a renewed hunger for fresh (and potentially) viable experiences; the achievement of goals (or objectives) may in comparison pale into insignificance!
In any assessment, the importance of intuition should be recognised; the young person should endeavour to `read` (significant) signs and attitudes in behaviour; to relate certain aspects of the behaviour of a person, with the whole and to associate such determinants with (likely) motive; in other words to understand factors which contribute to the intentions of `total` behaviour.
Individuals, however, may make only a limited appraisal of their needs; insecurity and fear (of the `unknown`) drains enthusiasm and is answerable for many misdemeanours and challengeable ideas and decisions; people may wish to feel accountable to a superior being (or godhead) which may get in the way of a rational and reasoned assessment of need.
This situation, of course, needs prime consideration and needs to be continually addressed: individuals may turn to modes of behaviour which reflect prejudice, bigotry and bullying (in order to achieve certain objectives); such behaviour and attitude needs to be identified and replaced by firmness, within a framework of compassion, which eschews undesirable elements; persistent offenders, of course may need to be handled in such a way which relates more specifically to the nature of their offence.
Many people, of course, are reluctant to reveal much about themselves. They may continue to feel exposed and vulnerable and may respond by `basking` under a veil of secrecy (and deception); thus giving credence to the term `poser`!
In the last resort, this scenario of deception can be played out throughout the life of that person and persisting to the end of the life of that person, culminating in a fear of death!
Our responsibility is to discourage this situation and allow understanding and validation and the pursuit of truth; as indicated, this will involve a reasoned, rational approach to life – with no place for superstition and unfounded precepts!
We owe it to ourselves to be truthful and to know who we really are and to know who it is we are knocking up against in a crowd!
Life may be played `on a stage` but we are all `players` – we need to know ourselves in order to gain most from our short stay in this world and not to feel bitterness and resentment at crucial moments.
We need to cultivate a sharp, proactive and searching attitude and challenge the very fabric of our being; this can be an uncomfortable and uneasy experience but will help to reveal to us life in all its fullness (and majesty).
A commitment through the outdoors is an important way of meeting such `humanitarian` requirements. Life `at the edge` of human participation and commitment (where survival is an issue) goes some way to meeting the demands of a life, often lacking challenge.
As teachers, our efforts are channelled into helping pupils to become better people – people who have the skills to cope with their own idiosyncrasies, preferences and foibles and with the stresses and strains of life in the working world, as well as someone who is able to deal with other people and all the events that life presents.
The outdoor experience provided by Outward Bound* can act as the catalyst for helping the emerging individual, the embryonic young person. The ethos of Outward Bound (To Serve, To Strive And Not To Yield) provides the impetus whereby the challenge of the outdoors is instrumental as the backdrop for encouraging the option `I can` so that the hopes and aspirations of every young person can be put to the test.
Outward Bound is the forerunner in outdoor experience and runs forty centres in twenty-four countries, worldwide. The initial intention of Outward Bound in 1941 has been carried forward to the increasingly difficult and testing world of today which, in many cases, distracts and disenchants young people.
The antecedents of Outward Bound wanted to make young people better equipped to free themselves of the trials of war and of life – in that respect nothing has changed and young people continue to be the beneficiaries of the outdoor experience which is Outward Bound. Outward Bound has been, and is, at the forefront of initiatives through which young people test themselves in the arena of mountains and sea. Staff at various centres provide structured challenges in which they and their charges conjoin to re-create a shared experience in the outdoors.
A geographer would say the view from the top is important; as a physical educationalist I say the view from the top is equally important! In life, it is important to reflect without reference to regrets, misgivings, or even misconceptions, but in reality this is difficult to achieve.
For further details, visit http://www.outwardbound.org.uk/

*Outward Bound is a registered name/mark
Contact
Rodney David Cooper, FRGS
Abergynolwyn, Tywyn
Gwynedd, UK
Email: gillawalker@yahoo.co.uk

ICSSPE News
Katrin Koenen

Sport as a Mediator between Cultures
International Conference on Sport for Development and Peace
15-17 September, 2011, Wingate Institute, Israel
Drawing upon first-hand experiences, research, and monitoring and evaluation data, together with scientists and field experts, the partners of Sport as a Mediator between Cultures wish to critically reflect upon the achievements of enthusiastic civil society actors, non-governmental organisations, national governments and the corporate sector in this field and explore the potential for future activities.
For this conference a venue in a region was chosen, which is characterised by deep-seated social divisions, political imbalances and ethno-religious conflicts, setting preferably a starting point for a series of similar activities in other parts of this region, activities which will contribute to a better understanding of how sport can best be organised to help to facilitate mutual understanding within and between cultures and to promote conflict resolution and peace building.
The conference, including both lectures and workshops, will provide research based knowledge as well as pedagogic and didactic learning for those who are involved with the development of sporting programmes for intercultural approach and peace building. Covered topics are: Analysis of the potential of sport, physical education, play and movement in development and conflict settings; benefits through intercultural cooperation in sport; development of projects on the basis of local needs; development of project structures to facilitate and to link development initiatives with existing societal structures; methods of evaluation of sport activities in different regions around the world; university programmes and academic training; exploring the potential for future local and regional projects. In addition to the scientific programme, social side events including field trips to sport for development, community building and peace projects in Israel will be organised.
For further information and for registration, please visit www.icsspe.org
Communities and Crisis – Inclusive Development through Sport
November 21-26, 2011, Rheinsberg, Germany
To augment ICSSPE´s seminars on Sport in Post-Disaster Intervention, the seminar “Communities and Crisis – Inclusive Development through Sport” will deliver an interdisciplinary training package for evolving and using sport programmes for development and inclusive community building. It will be relevant to both beginners and experienced workers in this field.
Designed for social workers, psychologists, students and sport professionals, the seminar will provide participants with the practical skills and theoretical knowledge required to deliver psycho-social sport and physical activity programmes in social problem and crisis areas. International experts and practitioners in sociology, psychology, social work, occupational and physical therapy, as well as physical activity, will deliver a curriculum of hands-on practical workshops combined with theoretical sessions.
The main areas of interest during the seminar will be didactical-methodical training; psychology and trauma relief; inclusive sport programmes; sport and culture; and challenges in crisis areas. Aligning with these topics several didactical and experimental learning sessions, such as community based psycho-social support; designing inclusive activities for everyone; from individual survivor to a surviving community; using the potential of sport - adapting sport programmes to different cultures; and project funding and entrepreneurship, will be held.
For further information and for registration, please visit www.icsspe.org

Upcoming Publication
A New Book in the ICSSPE Perspectives Series
In July this year, ICSSPE, in cooperation with Routledge, will publish a new book in the Perspectives series, this time on “Lifelong Engagement in Sport and Physical Activity: Participation and Performance across the Lifespan”. The publication offers an overview of some of the core concerns underlying lifelong engagement in sport. Lifelong engagement is understood to refer to participation in activities across the lifespan, and therefore encompasses the different ages and phases of engagement. The book explores some of the models of engagement from around the world, as well as specific areas of research that will help the reader understand this important topic.
This book focuses on psycho-social issues relating to participation in sport and physical activity. Chapters have been written by experts from a range of countries and backgrounds. It is a response to the call from many national and international agencies to view sport as a lifelong activity, beginning in childhood, and being accessible to players of all levels of ability and competition. Accordingly, a particular strength of this edited book is that authors will be drawn from nine different countries.
In adopting a lifespan approach, particular attention is paid to sport and physical activity during childhood and adolescence (section 1) and transitions into adulthood (section 2). In section 3, chapters address issues relating to sport and physical activity during adulthood, and the final section (4) examines sport and physical activity among older adults, an often overlooked segment of society in this respect.
The publication will be available through Routledge and the ICSSPE website.

Professor Doll-Tepper and Christophe Mailliet were awarded Honorary Membership
During its last meeting, the ICSSPE President`s Committee awarded Honorary Membership to Gudrun Doll-Tepper and Christophe Mailliet. Gudrun Doll-Tepper was President of ICSSPE from 1997 to 2008 and Christophe Mailliet Executive Director from 1997 to 2007. Both of them are still working in sport and sport science. Doll-Tepper is a Professor at the Freie Universität Berlin, Vice-President Education of the German Olympic Sports Confederation and a member of the IOC Women and Sport Commission. Mailliet acts as Head of Operations for streetfootballworld, a network of over 80 organisations using football as a tool to improve lives of disadvantaged individuals world-wide. Highlighting their outstanding personalities and ability to engage with individuals to promote the cause of the Council and its members, ICSSPE President Margaret Talbot presented the honorary certificates to them and thanked them for their longstanding engagement.