No one else has the guts, so I will say it: the Paralympics are a grotesque and patronising freak show.
I can just about understand the wheelchair races, they are no more absurd than someone throwing himself down a steep ice channel on a tea tray in the Winter Olympics. It takes physical strength and skill to wheel a sawn-off supermarket trolley while sitting in it, so I'll give them that one, that is a fair sport. What is not fair is that the competition is only open to those with no, stunted, withered, deformed or otherwise seriously defective legs. If they really are supreme athletes, let them prove it in open competition. They need have nothing to fear, after all most of the competitors have an advantage over the able bodied in that such legs as they may have are considerably lighter than those of someone who can walk. If they always win we will know the absence of pins gives an unfair advantage and we can introduce weight categories or handicapping with lead weights. If they do not win despite their apparent advantage, we will see that they are not top athletes after all.
As for the other sports, most are just an excuse for do-gooders to look on and say "didn't he do well, it's wonderful what he can do when he tries, bless his heart." To watch sufferers of Downs Syndrome racing on a track or in water is no different from gawking at the deformed in a Victorian side show, it is disgusting, patronising voyeurism.
Then we have blind runners. The more astute reader will identify the principal difficulty for a blind runner on an oval track, but the organisers of this absurdity are not stupid, they have thought of that. Blind runners go round strapped by the wrist to an able-bodied athlete charged with preventing collisions and keeping their competitor on the track. By definition this requires the able-bodied companion to be at least as fast a runner as his charge. In what sense is it an achievement worthy of an Olympic gold medal to run no faster than than someone you are attached to by a cord and substantially slower than most who were eliminated in the first heat of the same event in the real Olympics?
Most absurd of all is that it is called elite sport. These are, no doubt, the best limbless, sightless and mentally defective participants but that has nothing to do with elite sport. Elite sport is about absolute achievements, being the fastest on the day over 400 metres, throwing the javelin the furthest, riding a horse over high obstacles with fewest errors and so on. You can be a bit dim and still run fast, as is proved when most of our athletes give interviews, but it does not matter whether you are Einstein's lost identical twin or a complete retard, what matters is that in open competition you proved yourself to be the fastest or strongest. That is the measure. No if ands or buts, did you beat everyone else? If you are missing a leg you are not going to be the fastest or even in the top thousand fastest and, therefore, you are not an elite sportsman.
I enjoy playing golf but such is my limited skill that a score in the low nineties on a par seventy is an achievement for me. We don't see the PGA laying on special major tournaments for those missing the essential ingredients required to be a great player. What we do see is golf clubs all over the world welcoming me and my fellow hackers because we enjoy playing and are prepared to pay to do so. It is a recreational activity because we do not have what it takes to be the best. We also see sports clubs welcoming those with physical or mental handicaps for exactly the same reason. Lacking a limb or a large chunk of normal brainpower is no different from not having the physical coordination or the ability to concentrate required to be a top sportsman. By all means take part, enter competitions if you wish and enjoy it, but don't try to kid us into thinking it is real high-level sport. It is not. It is an excuse for the professionally sanctimonious to wallow in a pool of their own smugness and say how well they are treating the mongs and the cripples. A grotesque and patronising freak show.
I can just about understand the wheelchair races, they are no more absurd than someone throwing himself down a steep ice channel on a tea tray in the Winter Olympics. It takes physical strength and skill to wheel a sawn-off supermarket trolley while sitting in it, so I'll give them that one, that is a fair sport. What is not fair is that the competition is only open to those with no, stunted, withered, deformed or otherwise seriously defective legs. If they really are supreme athletes, let them prove it in open competition. They need have nothing to fear, after all most of the competitors have an advantage over the able bodied in that such legs as they may have are considerably lighter than those of someone who can walk. If they always win we will know the absence of pins gives an unfair advantage and we can introduce weight categories or handicapping with lead weights. If they do not win despite their apparent advantage, we will see that they are not top athletes after all.
As for the other sports, most are just an excuse for do-gooders to look on and say "didn't he do well, it's wonderful what he can do when he tries, bless his heart." To watch sufferers of Downs Syndrome racing on a track or in water is no different from gawking at the deformed in a Victorian side show, it is disgusting, patronising voyeurism.
Then we have blind runners. The more astute reader will identify the principal difficulty for a blind runner on an oval track, but the organisers of this absurdity are not stupid, they have thought of that. Blind runners go round strapped by the wrist to an able-bodied athlete charged with preventing collisions and keeping their competitor on the track. By definition this requires the able-bodied companion to be at least as fast a runner as his charge. In what sense is it an achievement worthy of an Olympic gold medal to run no faster than than someone you are attached to by a cord and substantially slower than most who were eliminated in the first heat of the same event in the real Olympics?
Most absurd of all is that it is called elite sport. These are, no doubt, the best limbless, sightless and mentally defective participants but that has nothing to do with elite sport. Elite sport is about absolute achievements, being the fastest on the day over 400 metres, throwing the javelin the furthest, riding a horse over high obstacles with fewest errors and so on. You can be a bit dim and still run fast, as is proved when most of our athletes give interviews, but it does not matter whether you are Einstein's lost identical twin or a complete retard, what matters is that in open competition you proved yourself to be the fastest or strongest. That is the measure. No if ands or buts, did you beat everyone else? If you are missing a leg you are not going to be the fastest or even in the top thousand fastest and, therefore, you are not an elite sportsman.
I enjoy playing golf but such is my limited skill that a score in the low nineties on a par seventy is an achievement for me. We don't see the PGA laying on special major tournaments for those missing the essential ingredients required to be a great player. What we do see is golf clubs all over the world welcoming me and my fellow hackers because we enjoy playing and are prepared to pay to do so. It is a recreational activity because we do not have what it takes to be the best. We also see sports clubs welcoming those with physical or mental handicaps for exactly the same reason. Lacking a limb or a large chunk of normal brainpower is no different from not having the physical coordination or the ability to concentrate required to be a top sportsman. By all means take part, enter competitions if you wish and enjoy it, but don't try to kid us into thinking it is real high-level sport. It is not. It is an excuse for the professionally sanctimonious to wallow in a pool of their own smugness and say how well they are treating the mongs and the cripples. A grotesque and patronising freak show.
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