Will the Winter Paralympics in PyeongChang – granted that their appeal trails far behind the summer version, just as it does for the Olympics – help disabled people enter Italian daily life through the front door instead of shuttling between gold medals and dark basements with no apparent middle ground? People with disabilities, especially athletes, are missing only the label "saint." Because they have long been stuck with the adjectives "courageous," "poor things," and, to complete the picture, "heroic." It all stems from the idea that imperfection—a missing leg, say—or an inherent misfortune like an accident can place someone above the ordinary. A position that inevitably invites judgment, for better or worse.
And so the disabled person becomes perpetually "other"—someone who once had to be hidden away, out of shame or protection depending on the case, and who, today, by sharp and natural contrast with changing times and especially with sport, has become a positively, exaggeratedly, heroically "other" figure.
Let's be honest: it's almost fake. All this imposed "heroism" still makes disabled people feel different, set apart from those who don't feel brave enough to get out of bed in the morning and thank heaven for having two legs, two arms, for walking the way Pilates instructors teach, for seeing and hearing perfectly.
What does sport have to do with all this? What do the Paralympics have to do with it? Sport inevitably blazes the trail for social change, and this case is no exception. The evolution of how we perceive disability—in sport—must pass through specific stages: from astonishment at watching athletes flip wheelchairs to no longer asking, dripping with human pity, "do you need help?" There was a sharper, more irreverent moment when Paolo Villaggio commented during the 2012 London Paralympics on Radio 24 that sport for disabled people was a real ordeal, triggering an uproar and dividing the world into do-gooders and straight-talkers, as if nothing existed in between. But what we really need is to normalize sport for people with disabilities (and not just sport). Perhaps it would be even better—staying in Italy—to use an unconventional but far less ghetto-fying term: it would be lovely to "constitutionalize" sport for people with disabilities, drawing on that substantive equality at the heart of our Constitution. And perhaps, from sport, expand to countless other areas touching disability and difference.
This is what the Paralympics try to do every two years: enter homes to show that it can be done. That it can be done today and tomorrow too. Will these Winter Paralympics succeed, at least a bit more? How will we react watching a one-legged skier tackle a downhill run at 100 kilometers per hour, or seeing a blind skier follow his guide in perfect sync, skiing fearlessly over moguls, uneven snow, and speed? Will we be ready to see them as athletes first, then focus on their stories? (everyone has a story, even millionaire Cristiano Ronaldo, after all). Speaking of stories, and setting aside the already well-known ones of Bebe Vio, Alex Zanardi, and other summer medalists: Fabrizio Caselli, a Tuscan kayaker and future parabobbier (the sport will likely join the Winter Paralympics program, probably at Beijing 2022), said the day before Rio de Janeiro: "What luck that accident was. If it weren't for that dive, I'd still be working as a glazier".
The Paralympics begin Friday, March 9, at noon Italian time, with the opening ceremony. Then competition starts: 27 Italian athletes—17 in para ice hockey, 4 in alpine skiing (René De Silvestro, Davide Bendotti, Giacomo Bertagnolli, and Fabrizio Casal), 4 in para snowboarding (Paolo Priolo, Jacopo Luchini, Manuel Pozzerle, and Roberto Cavicchi), and 1 in cross-country skiing (Cristian Toninelli). No women. The goal: "Do better than Sochi 2014," when Italy took zero medals. What's at stake is the chance to enter Italian homes through the same door everyone else uses. No heroes. Just athletes.
Source: Wired