Physically Challenged Athletes

Life for the physically challenged athletes can be an obstacle both mentally, physically, and socially. The problem is with an obstacle or setback in your life, it is difficult to keep self-confidence, self-determination, and motivation to keep up with daily activities let alone sports and exercise. The social dimension does not add a positive effect to that. The downfall is tending to categorize or marginalize the disabled. This does not create a positive image for disabled persons. Anyone that was born with a disability, or was disabled during their lifetime needs extra support to keep them in a positive motivated mood.

Over the years many organizations such as the Paralympics and Challenged Athletes Foundation have been developed to raise awareness and get the physically challenged involved in some form of exercise that suits each individual with a competitive edge to it. The point is to encourage people to compete and be able to feel success through winning, and also the agony of losing. Every person challenged or not, deserves a chance to compete in sports and enjoy themselves doing it.

Some of the issues that face the challenged athletes are funding and awareness of their cause. There are 54 million people living with a disability in the United States alone. The equipment (either regular or adaptive) used to allow these individuals to engage in the active lifestyle is extremely expensive. Also, adaptive training and competition expenses add to the growing bill. So you can see how money can be a deciding factor in whether or not an individual plays a sport. The Challenged Athletes Foundation assists with scholarships and grants to help allow more people to join an active lifestyle and build the self-esteem that comes with it.

The Paralympics is also another great organization that has brought much awareness to the disabled cause. People are beginning to realize that disabled athletes can compete in many events and be just as competitive as the Olympics. Disabled athletes train intensely for their events in the Paralympics. They keep themselves motivated and they have overcome adversity. By doing this they set a very good example to other individuals with disabilities and they show it’s ok to be different emphasizing there are endless possibilities. They’re sending the message across that anything is possible and to not segregate yourself from non-disable people.
However, awareness of the cause is not large-scale as desired. For example, disabled cross-country skier Colette Bourgonje admitted Paralympic sport has come a long way but awareness is still low in some places, especially to disabled Canadians. Colette is a Canadian and hopes that hosting the 2010 Winter Paralympics in Vancouver and Whistler will show how many sports there are accessible for the disabled. To get a scope of how large this event is there will be 1,350 athletes and team officials from 40 countries. So the physically challenged has come a long way throughout the years but can always grow more. Disabled individuals face daily obstacles emotionally and physically that non-disabled individuals are not accustomed to. Raising awareness of their cause is crucial and should continue to grow with help from everyone’s support. Everyone should be able to participate in something they are interested in or love doing.

C.Rau
KIN 339
Monday 7 p.m.