Disabled kids need funds not just beaming smiles
SUCH bravery. Look at that determination. Superhumans, right? Examples to us all — and role models for the next generation. Ah, about that generation. They can’t train on kind words and beaming smiles. And they’re being failed by Scotland.
This week’s Sportsmail exclusive about the participation gap between children with disabilities and their able-bodied peers wouldn’t have surprised anyone working in that squeezed sector of grassroots sport.
But the figures were certainly shocking. Especially to those of us who, let’s be honest, only pay really close attention to the wheelchair racers, blind runners and double amputee sprinters once very four — or five — years.
To recap the findings of the research pulled together by leading academics, only one in ten youngsters with a disability reported having taken part in any physical activity in the previous month.
Compare that to the eight out of ten able-bodied kids answering yes to the same question and, well, the problem should be obvious.
With the Paralympics in Tokyo now underway, campaigners hope that changing headline attitudes to disability sport lead to a deeper appreciation of what games and activities might mean. Not merely to the elite athletes, but to every child excluded from PE or effectively locked out of a local facility. Most of us understand that the benefits of sport go far beyond medals and magical moments.
From youth right through to middle age and beyond, we take part in our various pastimes because they make us feel good.
Maybe a little more virtuous than we have any right to be — it’s a Park Run, not the Marathon des Sables, Dave — but, well, that’s a price worth paying for all the physical and mental health benefits.
It shouldn’t require a major leap of imagination, then, to consider that kids confined to wheelchairs or walking frames, for example, might have fun competing in some sort of game or contest.
Yet research shows that children with all sorts of physical issues repeatedly encounter barriers and blocks on their desire to play. There are at least some grounds for optimism, judging from measures already being discussed at the highest level.
If the playing field is to be levelled for these youngsters, however, hard cash will have to be invested.
And, mirroring the debate going on in able-bodied sport, that investment will have to be made without the promise of podium finishes in return.
Because sport is worth supporting in its own right, not just as an outlet for fleeting instances of national pride.
The Paralympic movement has achieved spectacular results in opening people’s minds to the idea of disabled athletes as elite competitors.
At the most basic level, they’ve changed perceptions and done away with a lot of the patronising comment that used to accompany the most astonishing athletic achievements.
During one discussion with an expert in the field last week, however, your Sportsmail columnist was introduced to the debate over whether we’ve created two different tiers of para-sportsmen and women.
The concern is that there is an almost overwhelming focus on competitors with great back stories. The guy who lost his legs in Afghanistan or the girl who ended up in a wheelchair after a tragic accident.
Elite contenders who just happen to have been born different? Not such an easy sell, regardless of what anyone says about changing attitudes.
The idea that we’re unwittingly relegating some Paralympians to second-class status will rightly alarm most reasonable people.
Yet the lived experience of so many youngsters with disabilities in Scotland suggests that, as a society, we’re not quite so concerned about leaving a majority on the sidelines — and excluding them from the sweaty, arduous, frustrating joys of sport.
Cheer on the 33 Scots in action out in Tokyo, then. Marvel at their drive, their skill, their utter refusal to be kept on the outside looking in.
Then maybe think about opening a few doors for the boys and girls back home.