What is the Difference Between the Olympics and the Paralympics?
What is the Difference Between the Olympics and the Paralympics?
By Jayson Panganiban July 24, 2024 05:37
The distinction between the Olympic and Paralympic Games often concerns public understanding and awareness. While both events epitomize the pinnacle of athletic achievement, their history and purpose reflect unique aspects that distinguish one from the other. Together with Fan Arch, let’s delve into these differences to appreciate the importance of both in celebrating human spirit, endurance, and excellence.
Eligibility and Participation
Olympic athletes must compete in national and international competitions that serve as qualifying events, achieving specific performance standards. Paralympic athletes, on the other hand, must have a "recognized physical or intellectual impairment that meets specific criteria as determined by their respective international sports federation and national governing body.
Classifications are important for Paralympic athletes because they group international competitors according to the degree of their impairment, which keeps sports fair and competitive. By comparison, the Special Olympics also allows athletes with intellectual disabilities to compete at any performance level.
Events and Competitions
Now, the Olympics comprise many sports, such as athletics, swimming, gymnastics, or soccer, and basketball, to name a few. The Paralympic Games are also sporting events similar to the Olympics games, which feature many of the same sports but with adjustments and modifications through adaptations for people with a wide range of impairment types.
For example, Paralympic swimmers to race with assistive devices such as prosthetic limbs or wheelchairs. Paralympic athletics is also included with events like wheelchair racing, seated throwing, and goalball, a team sport for the blind.
Organizational Structure and Governance
The organization of the Olympic Games is governed by the International Olympics Ceremony (IOC), a nongovernmental body located in Lausanne, Switzerland. The IOC organizes the selection of host cities, crafts the program for each Olympic Games, and oversees the participation of national Olympic committees and international sports federations.
However, the Paralympic Games, which were founded in 1989, are held and organized immediately following the respective Olympic Games by a different organization, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). The IPC works closely with the IOC to ensure that agreements are in place for successfully integrating the Paralympic Games and Olympic Games. At the same time, they also have various organizational structures as a decision-making process.
Facilities and Services
The Olympics and Paralympics involve the hosting of many different types of sporting events, so both games are heavily dependent upon their infrastructure.
Nevertheless, Paralympian competitions typically receive extra accommodation and adaptation to cater for making accessibility at venues as being inclusive. This may include ramps, lifts, and seating areas to provide access for physically disabled athletes and spectators. Specialized equipment like wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, or assistive devices will also be needed to ensure that the Paralympians can compete against fair competition.
Media Coverage and Viewership
The Olympic Games are usually covered more extensively in the media and attract considerably more viewer interest than the Paralympic Games. This gap has slowly been closed in recent years thanks to increased visibility and viewership of the Paralympic Games, largely through growth on digital and social media platforms.
The 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games were watched by over 4.25 billion, as the International Paralympic Committee celebrated a global increase in cumulative TV audience from Rio of up to +7%.
Importance and Impact on Society
Both the Olympic and Paralympic Games have a huge social impact, reflecting values such as sportsmanship, inclusion, and striving for excellence. However, the Paralympic Games are unique in that they can challenge societal assumptions and stereotypes about disability.
The Paralympic Movement, in turn, is a formidable tool for raising awareness and advocating for the rights of people with disabilities and their inclusion. The games are part sports spectacle and, in doing so, break down barriers by highlighting the athletic abilities of higher-functioning Paralympians, sparking greater acceptance and understanding.
In addition, the Paralympic Games change the lives of individual athletes, offering unparalleled personal and sporting prospects. The games also serve as a beacon of hope and resilience for persons with disabilities across the globe.
Though the Olympics and Paralympics share many common root values based on an ethos of elite sports, internationalism, and diplomacy and arise from a similar sociocultural foundation, they are separate events with distinct histories. Organization structures note that they each have their individual Governing Bodies organizing these "core" missions as well as social impacts. By appreciating the critical distinctions between them, we are reminded of the important place that both established global sports events make in sport and humanity generally.
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