By ANA ESCAMILLA, Associated Press
PARIS (AP) — The message is clear: Paralympians are not participating. They are competing.
A number of athletes preparing for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games have proclaimed that on their social feeds over the past few days, reminding the world that Olympians are not the only athletes coming to Paris looking for gold.
The games will be underway next week with the opening ceremony on Wednesday. Athletes and the games’ own social and creative teams have been taking a more aggressive approach to their messaging, leaning into disabilities and being willing to risk discomfiting their audience to introduce athletes and their personalities, not just their disabilities.
The International Paralympic Committee has released several YouTube videos to show the edgier side of its competitors, including : “ Paris 2024: What Really Matters ” and “ Paris 2024: 100 Days to Go – Welcome to the Paralympics.” The tagline for both: “This is the Paralympics… they’re not playing games.”
If you didn’t know the characters, the “What Really Matters” series opens on a jarring note. A genial 5-foot-6-inch man grasps a car’s steering wheel with his foot. He leans over to his passenger and says with a sideways smile, “Is this your first time riding in a car with a guy without arms?”
The guy with no arms is Paralympic silver medalist Matt Stutzman, who has built up a brand as the “Armless Archer.” He maneuvers the car with his feet: left foot on the pedals, right foot on the steering wheel.
Stutzman’s passenger is Chuck Aoki, a wheelchair rugby player joining Stutzman on Team USA. In the YouTube series, Stutzman hosts Aoki and para track and field athlete Scout Bassett telling their stories from a different point of view with humor thrown in.
“There’s that connection; it’s like an unspoken bond,” said Stutzman, who earned a silver medal in the men’s individual compound open at the London games in 2012. “I might not know who Bassett is, but we both know that we both had to go through something specific to even get to the level where we’re at in sport.”
The IPC has received criticism for leaning into the disabilities of their athletes, but spokesman Craig Spence said the irreverent approach was necessary.
“If you speak to Paralympians, they’ve got a great sense of humor. They’re not wrapped up in cotton wool and protected from society,” Spence said in an interview earlier this year.
“They like to laugh about themselves,” he said. “Like we all do, and that’s why we’ve tried to be really edgy on the Paralympic TikTok account.”
Spence said the criticism the IPC had received came mostly from people outside the community of people with disabilities, and the comments often ask who the admin is on the account — implying it’s someone making fun of disabilities. But according to Spence, the “admin” is 2008 Paralympian Richard Fox from Britain.
A few videos have gone viral on the account. One video captured single-leg cyclist Darren Hicks winning time trial para-cycling gold in Tokyo with an altered audio sounding like a Marine drill sergeant yelling “left, left, left.”
Another audio that had viewers in shock in the comments section featured double-arm amputee Zheng Tao bumping into the wall with his head to claim gold at the London 2012 games.
For Stutzman, this content enables him and his teammates to tell the world they are not disabled people; they’re athletes with a range of capabilities who happen to have disabilities.
“It took the Paralympic Games and archery to make the world a believer that people with physical disabilities can literally do what everybody else can do,” Stutzman said.
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Ana Escamilla is a student in the undergraduate certificate program in the Carmical Sports Media Institute at the University of Georgia.
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