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Disability & Society

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Hahn versus Guttmann: revisiting

‘Sports and the Political Movement of
Disabled Persons’
a
Nikki Wedgwood
a
Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, Lidcombe,
Sydney, Australia.
Published online: 02 May 2013.

To cite this article: Nikki Wedgwood (2014) Hahn versus Guttmann: revisiting ‘Sports
and the Political Movement of Disabled Persons’, Disability & Society, 29:1, 129-142, DOI:
10.1080/09687599.2013.776488

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 Disability & Society, 2014
Vol. 29, No. 1, 129–142, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2013.776488

Hahn versus Guttmann: revisiting ‘Sports and the Political

Movement of Disabled Persons’
Nikki Wedgwood*

Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, Lidcombe, Sydney, Australia

(Received 16 April 2012; final version received 29 January 2013)
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Ludwig Guttmann, who pioneered the use of sport in the physical, psychologi-
cal and social rehabilitation of paraplegic patients, argued that sport facilitates
social reintegration, even asserting that: ‘an employer will not hesitate… to
employ a paralysed man… when he realizes that [he] is an accomplished sports-
man’ (Guttmann, 1976: 13). Disability activist Harlan Hahn, on the other hand,
argued that participation by people with disabilities in sport is: an emulation of
non-disabled standards; over-emphasises physicality in the assessment of
humans; and diverts attention from the struggle for equality. Focusing on the
Paralympics, this paper shows that disability sport is neither a panacea for social
exclusion, as Guttmann would have it, nor a monolithic disabling institution, as
Hahn would suggest—but rather an incredibly complex phenomena politically,
socially and historically. It is argued that, whether essentially disablist or not,
the Paralympics may make an excellent political platform for the disability
rights movement.
Keywords: disability; sport; social inclusion; Paralympics; Harlan Hahn; Ludwig
Guttmann

Points of interest

• Some able-bodied people think playing sport is a good way for people with
disabilities to make friends, show able-bodied people what they can do and
feel good about themselves and their bodies.
• Some sportspeople with disabilities agree but other people with disabilities
think that playing sport is just a way of trying to be like able-bodied people.
• This paper looks at the Paralympics to try to see which of these views is
right.
• The paper shows that both views are right sometimes.
• The author suggests that disability organisations could help people with
disabilities get more of the good things from sport.

Introduction
The 29th of July 1948 was the opening day not only of the first London Olympic
Games but also, in nearby Aylesbury, of the inaugural Stoke Mandeville Games –

*Email: nicole.wedgwood@sydney.edu.au

Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis

 130 N. Wedgwood

forerunner to the Paralympics. Only four years earlier, neurosurgeon Sir Ludwig
Guttmann had set up the British National Unit for Paraplegics at Stoke Mandeville
Hospital to provide cutting-edge clinical treatment and rehabilitation for servicemen
and servicewomen who sustained spinal cord injuries during World War II. These
patients previously had only a 20% chance of surviving three years, and those who
did were considered incapable of rehabilitation and thus were confined to bed in
hospitals or institutions for the rest of their lives (Anderson 2003). Inspired by his
patients’ attempts to devise their own wheelchair sports and building on the
competitive nature of the (mostly) young male patients, Guttmann pioneered the
use of sport in the physical, psychological and social rehabilitation of paraplegic
patients (Anderson 2003). He later wrote that sport is not only ‘invaluable in restor-
ing the disabled person’s physical fitness’ but also helps ‘facilitate and accelerate …
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social reintegration or integration’ (Guttmann 1976, 112). He even went so far as to

say: ‘There is no doubt that an employer will not hesitate in appropriate
circumstances to employ a paralysed man confined to a wheelchair when he realizes
that this man is an accomplished sportsman’ (Guttmann 1976, 112). Thus, from its
earliest days, disability sport has been credited with promoting the social inclusion
of people with disabilities into able-bodied society, at least by some able-bodied
health professionals, sports administrators, educationalists and sociologists – not,
however, by the disability rights movement.
By the time the disability rights movement emerged in the 1970s, the Paralym-
pic movement and its organisation by able-bodied administrators were already long
established. Not only did the disability rights movement not include sport on its
political agenda, but some disability activists, like Harlan Hahn, were highly critical
of the participation of people with disabilities in sport. In his essay on ‘Sports and
the Political Movement of Disabled Persons’, Hahn (1984) argued that participation
by people with disabilities in any type of sport: was an emulation of non-disabled
standards with an inevitable risk of being judged by non-disabled standards; placed
excessive emphasis on physicality in the assessment of human beings; and diverted
attention away from the struggle of people with disabilities for equality.
Understandably, a major reason for disability activists rejecting sport is the need
to prioritise more urgent issues like employment, housing, health and education,
particularly in the early days of activism. I suggest there is another reason why
sport was – and essentially still is – sidelined by the disability rights movement,
particularly proponents of the social model. That is, by taking the socio-political
stance that disability is situated in society, the disabled body is purposely de-empha-
sised in order to challenge the dominant medical view of disability as something
wrong with the disabled person’s body that requires fixing/normalising/rehabilitating
by medical intervention. Sport, on the other hand, brings the body and its abilities/
inabilities very much into the spotlight. Awkward!
Yet, whilst sport undoubtedly celebrates physical abilities, and thus is imbued
with disablism, the sporting arena can also be the site of subversion, challenges or
resistance to unequal power relations. It can even be the site of both simultaneous
reproduction and resistance (Hargreaves 1994). Thus, although sports do tend to
reproduce dominant culture, they are deeply contradictory and also have the
potential to transform culture (Hargreaves 1994, 289). Sport is neither a realm of
absolute oppression nor an arena of absolute freedom and spontaneity, and must be
examined within a theory that views human beings as active subjects who operate
within historically constituted structural constraints (Gruneau 1983, 98).
 Disability & Society 131

With this in mind, and by focusing on the Paralympic Games, this paper revisits
both Guttmann’s and Hahn’s polarised views, exploring whether disability sport:

• is empowering/emancipatory at the lived, embodied level and/or a site for the

‘normalisation’ of people with disabilities through the mimicking of able-bod-
iedness;
• is a site for the social inclusion of people with disabilities and/or is a power-
ful social institution, reproducing broad social structures such as disablism;
• role-models inclusiveness, which automatically flows onto the rest of society
and/or is a potential, hereto unchartered, disability rights battleground; and
• presents an ‘in ya face’ challenge to disablist views of people with disabilities
as passive, pitiful charity cases and/or is simply reframed by the media and
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media consumers to conform with disablist preconceptions.

Empowering and emancipatory or disabling and normalising?

All sports arise out of specific social and historical contexts, and thus usually
develop in accordance with the interests of dominant social groups (Anderson
2003; Messner 1990; Washington and Karen 2001). In the case of the Paralympics,
this was primarily the medical profession, rather than the disability rights movement
or even disability athletes themselves. It was also shaped by wartime politics and
economics, with the Ministry of Pensions funding the Spinal Unit explicitly to
enable spinal cord-injured servicemen and servicewomen to return to work to
become economic producers rather than welfare consumers (Anderson 2003). In
fact, the primary purpose of the 1948 Stoke Mandeville Games was to showcase
the hospital’s work to the Minister of Pensions (Anderson 2003, 469). Thus,
Anderson warns against being ‘idealistic about the values of disabled sport’,
stressing ‘that its modern organized roots were driven by political expediency’
(2003, 469).
With its origins as a form of rehabilitation, disability sport has grown out of the
‘medical model’ and can thus be viewed in Foucauldian terms as a disablist attempt
to ‘normalise’ or ‘discipline’ the ‘disabled body’. However, people with disabilities
are not ‘passive victims of a society that fails to include them’ (Watson 1998, 150).
They have the capacity as creative human agents to act in/on the world to repro-
duce (or contest the reproduction of) social structures such as disablism. Howe, for
instance, has noted:

within the culture of Paralympians, most athletes do not bother to hide their amputa-
tion behind a cosmetic limb … most … are happy to wear either a technologically
advanced leg … or a more traditional prosthesis that is adorned with graphic art
[which] … makes the prosthesis highly visible … and could be seen as the result of
these athletes being more confident of the validity of their sporting achievements and
about their bodies more generally. (Howe 2008, 130)

Indeed, disability sport – at least for those who excel in it – provides a unique
environment within which people with disabilities can experience themselves as
powerful and agentic and can be out and proud about their disability, their body, its
power and abilities, its differences to the ‘norm’ and its similarities with their rivals,
 132 N. Wedgwood

peers and teammates. Thus, to become an elite disabled athlete can be personally
empowering and have a positive impact on health, well-being and self-esteem
(dePauw and Gavron 2005; Wedgwood 2013).
Unfortunately, however, personal empowerment does not necessarily translate
into empowerment for Paralympians as a group. Indeed, the Paralympic tradition of
top-down management that began with Guttmann continues today with the Interna-
tional Paralympic Committee (IPC), comprised primarily of able-bodied administra-
tors with a sport-specific, rather than disability-specific, orientation.
Howe (2008) usefully divides the development of the Paralympic movement
into three phases: first, its beginnings in Stoke Mandeville as a form of rehabilita-
tion for people with spinal cord injuries; second, as a movement providing opportu-
nities for people with all types of physical disabilities to participate in sport against
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physical equals; and third, its current form as an elite, commercial sporting
spectacle. This last phase is characterised by increased formal collaboration between
the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the IPC (Doll-Tepper 1999, 181).
In Sydney in 2000 the Olympics and Paralympics were marketed to the world as a
single entity for the first time, and the following year these closer ties were
formalised with the signing of the first agreement between the IOC and the IPC
(Howe 2008, 8 and 84). The many ‘benefits’ to the Paralympics of these closer ties
with the Olympics include corporate sponsorship, long-term financial support,
access to high-quality facilities during the Games, and countless other commercial
bonuses (Howe 2008, 84).
A major downside to this is that Paralympic athletes are largely absent from the
IPC decision-making processes and thus, as a group, are neither empowered nor
self-determining (Howe 2008, 7). Anthropologist, Paralympian and one-time
athletes’ representative, P. David Howe (2008, 94) argues that perhaps the most
important manner in which athletes are governed is via the classification of disabil-
ity sports – a largely medical practice conducted mostly by able-bodied people ‘that
can lead to stigmatisation and alienation because it ultimately creates a hierarchy of
bodies’ (Howe 2008, 64–65).
Traditionally athletes within each sport/event were classified by type and degree
of disability to ensure equitable competition. However, this resulted in a very large
number of events, medals and world records – peaking in Seoul in 1988 with 1257
events, 971 world records and 2208 medals for around 3000 athletes (Darcy 2012;
Strohkendl 2001, 281). Moreover, because the classification system is so complex,
most people find it confusing, presenting an obstacle to the Paralympics in gaining
more widespread public acceptance (Darcy and Cashman 2008b). Thus, with
increasingly closer ties to the IOC, the IPC streamlined what it saw as a complex,
cumbersome system that presented logistical problems and which created a potential
threat to the marketability of the Games to the mainstream media and potential
sponsors (Howe 2008, 73). This streamlining resulted in the amalgamation of some
classes – for instance, two different disability types – leading ultimately to inequita-
ble competition and also to the elimination of other classes, many of which were
for women and the more severely disabled (Howe 2008, 74–83).
Not only do Paralympians have little power to challenge the IOC and/or the IPC
regarding classifications or other disability rights issues, but for many Paralympians
such issues are not a high priority because they are sport focused rather than
disability focused (Hardin and Hardin 2008; Pinsent 2009). As one Paralympic
wheelchair track athlete unambiguously states:
 Disability & Society 133

I think of myself first and foremost as a sports … person – not as a woman – and not
as disabled … I train hard, I lift weights, I cover hundreds of miles, I go out in all
weathers … I’ve got a coach, I go to physio, and I’ve started eating a special diet …
I’m a dedicated athlete – just the same as able-bodied athletes … (Hargreaves 2000,
203; original emphasis)

Thus Hahn was right to fear disability sport as a diversion from the struggle for
equality – at least for those who play. It does not necessarily follow, however, that
it diverts the attention of disability rights activists away from the struggle for
equality at a collective level. To the contrary, as I suggest below, the sporting arena
may make an excellent political platform for the disability rights movement.
Another of Hahn’s concerns was that, for people with disabilities, playing sport
is an emulation of non-disabled standards. Certainly, there is evidence of an increas-
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ing tendency for Paralympians to aspire to the able-bodiedness of athletes without

disabilities, some being ‘quoted directly as being concerned with emulating the
efforts of Olympic athletes’ (Thomas and Smith 2009, 143). To some disability
activists, struggling to prove oneself equal to able-bodied people or conforming to
able-bodied norms is considered ‘internalised oppression’. Others, like Shakespeare
and Watson (2001, 556), argue that not only does this assertion reinforce the
disabled/non-disabled dichotomy, but ‘this attitude in itself can be patronizing and
oppressive’. More importantly, to use one’s body in powerful, agentic and skilful
ways is to gain confidence in one’s body and therefore in oneself, regardless of
what others think (Wedgwood 2004).

Sport as socially inclusive or exclusive?

As well as being admired as a great man and remarkable pioneer of disability sport
and the Paralympic Games (Howe 2008; Thomas 2008), Guttmann was also
reported to be ‘a single-minded autocrat and maverick’ whose interests in disability
sport were limited solely to athletes with spinal cord injury, who ‘would not enter-
tain the involvement of other disabilities’ in the Stoke Mandeville or Paralympic
Games (Thomas 2008, 108). He defended his position by advocating the formation
of other international sports organisations based on the aetiology of the disability,
ironically becoming a major force in the establishment of sports organisations for
other disability types (Labanowich 1988, 267).
Thus, it was not until more than a quarter of a century after the first Stoke
Mandeville Games in 1948 that any competitors other than wheelchair athletes with
spinal cord injury were included in the Paralympics – in 1976, amputees and
athletes with vision impairments were included. Organisers then changed the name
of the Games to the ‘Olympiad for the Physically Disabled’ because ‘Paralympics’
was associated with the ‘Paraplegic Olympics’ and objected to by athletes with
other disabilities (Legg et al. 2004, 34). In 1988 the name Paralympics was
officially reinstated, only this time with ‘para’ denoting ‘parallel’ to the Olympics
(Doll-Tepper 1999, 178; Legg et al. 2004, 34). In 1980 athletes with ambulatory
cerebral palsy were included, followed in 1984 by athletes with wheelchair cerebral
palsy and ‘les autres’/the others (Mastro et al. 1996, 200). It was not until 1996 that
a small selection of athletes with intellectual disabilities was admitted (Corr 2008).
Thus, thanks largely to able-bodied administrators, the Paralympics have not
always been inclusive. Disablism and exclusion, however, are not the exclusive
 134 N. Wedgwood

preserve of the able-bodied, or of sports administrators. A survey of 138 members

of the US Disabled Sports Team travelling to the 1992 Paralympic Games revealed
that elite athletes have a hierarchy of preference toward one another that is similar
to the disability hierarchies of non-disabled people (Mastro et al. 1996). From most
to least favoured, these were amputations, dwarfism/les autres, paraplegia/quadriple-
gia, visual disability and cerebral palsy (Mastro et al. 1996). This supports ‘empiri-
cal observations that integration of different disability groups in Paralympic sports
does not occur easily’ (Sherrill and Williams 1996, 46). Many Paralympians were
not happy for athletes with intellectual disabilities to be included in the
Paralympics, suggesting they belong in the Special Olympics (Howe 2008, 80; Corr
2008). American women wheelchair basketballers were prohibited from official
competitions by their male counterparts in the National Wheelchair Basketball
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Association until 1974 (Hargreaves 2000, 184). There is also empirical evidence of
Paralympians with cerebral palsy not being accepted by those with spinal cord
injuries or amputations (Howe 2008; Mastro et al. 1996).
More critical than the levels of inclusivity within the Paralympics, however, is
the broader question of the role of the Paralympics in the social inclusion of people
with disabilities in society more broadly. After all, according to the founder of the
Paralympics, competing with able-bodied sportspeople will ‘create a better under-
standing between the disabled and able-bodied and help the disabled in their social
reintegration’ (Guttmann 1976, 13). Yet, rather ironically, the Paralympics has
always been separate from, or at most parallel to, the Olympics. Some academics
and activists have argued that disability-specific sports separate people with disabili-
ties ‘practically and symbolically from the mainstream’ (Hargreaves 2000, 213) and
that the existence of a special event like the Paralympics serves only to perpetuate a
discourse of ‘special needs’ (Goggin and Newell 2000, 75).
There has also been debate within disability sport about whether integration with
the Olympics is best for Paralympians (Labanowich 1988; Steadward 1996; von
Selzam 2001). Among those in favour of integration there has been debate about
whether integration, reverse integration, or a combination of the two is best for peo-
ple with disabilities (Brasile 1992; Sørensen and Kahrs 2006). Reverse integration
is when able-bodied people participate in disability-specific sports like wheelchair
basketball. Thus, rather than adapting people with disabilities to fit into the hege-
monic sporting ideology, the dominant values of sport are questioned, challenged,
adapted and changed in a way that is more inclusive of people with disabilities.
In terms of the segregation versus integration debate, of particular interest is
Oscar Pistorius – a South African bilateral below-knee amputee sprinter who, in
2012, became the first double-amputee to compete at the Olympics. Known as ‘the
blade runner’ because of his hi-tech prostheses or as ‘the fastest man on no legs’
due to his double amputation, Pistorius was initially banned from the Olympics in
2007 on the basis that his carbon-fibre prostheses allowed him to expend less
energy than able-bodied runners, thus giving him an unfair advantage. A lengthy
court case overturned the decision in May 2008, ruling overall there was no evi-
dence that the blades gave him any net advantage over able-bodied athletes, with
tests showing that, while his artificial limbs are lighter than human legs, he must
push off the ground harder to get the same thrust, which cancels out any advantage
(Wolpe 2012). Indeed, although the ruling came in time for the Beijing Olympics,
Pistorius failed to qualify against able-bodied athletes for the Olympic 400 m. Simi-
larly in the 2012 Olympics, for which he did qualify, he only got as far as the
 Disability & Society 135

semi-finals of the men’s 400 m. Undoubtedly, had Pistorius won an Olympic medal,
more speculation and controversy would have ensued about his prostheses. Ironi-
cally, it was at the 2012 Paralympics where controversy over the blades erupted.
Pistorius entered the 2012 Paralympics as the T44 100 m, 200 m and 400 m
champion. Although he retained his 400 m title, finishing over four seconds ahead
of Blake Leeper of the United States, he lost his 100 m title to Britain’s Jonnie
Peacock and his 200 m title (by 0.077 seconds) to Alan Oliveira of Brazil. After the
200 m final – a race he had never lost before – Pistorious was furious, claiming
Oliveira’s blades were too long, allowing Oliveira to take longer strides, and called
for the IPC to investigate (Bull 2012). In fact, Pistorius took 92 steps during the
race compared with Oliveira’s 98 steps, and thus had consistently longer strides
(Tucker 2012). Moreover, if Pistorius had been able to reproduce his own world
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record of 21.30 seconds that he had set in the semi-finals, he would have beaten
Oliveira and, in fact, did go on to defeat him convincingly in the men’s 400 m final
later in the Games.
If Oliveira decides to compete in the Olympics, he will need to get his ‘longer’
blades approved because the ruling regarding Pistorius’ prostheses apply only to
Pistorius – there is no general decision nor guidelines about the use of ‘adaptive
sports equipment’ (Wolpe 2012). If a debate ensues about the length of his prosthe-
sis/leg in relation to his body, things could get even more complex. As Tucker from
the Science of Sport points out, there is substantial evidence to show that elite
runners, particularly Kenyan and West African runners, have disproportionately long
legs relative to their height, which may be a factor that predicts running success
(Tucker 2012). These of course are natural variations that occur in the spectrum of
human bodies, just as are disabilities.

Paralympics as a role-model to society or a disability rights battleground?

If more Paralympians are allowed to compete in the Olympics, the binary categories
of able bodied/disabled will probably become more blurred. However, it is critical
not to assume that integration in the sporting arena (elite or otherwise) will auto-
matically flow on to the rest of society. For instance, during the 2002 Common-
wealth Games – the first major international sports event to include elite athletes
with disabilities in its main programme and medal table – a recurring theme in the
media was that this greater level of inclusion in the able-bodied sporting arena was
not only a reflection of the growing ‘inclusion’ of people with disabilities in society,
but would further enhance relations between people with disabilities and able-bod-
ied people (Smith and Thomas 2005, 5–61). Even a cursory glance at, for instance,
employment rates of people with disabilities, quickly puts paid to this ‘feel-good’
theory.
Yet, the Paralympics and other elite disability sport events are often expected to
have a positive flow-on effect on the socio-political situation of people with
disabilities in the host community. Sport can of course be an overtly political arena
– South Africa was boycotted from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics in protest of their
Apartheid policies, sending a powerful political message, raising awareness of a
critical social justice issue and maybe even contributing to the eventual abolishment
of the Apartheid system. However, this is primarily the result of activists using
sport as a political arena. Improved political, social and economic conditions cannot
be expected to flow automatically or organically from the Games. To the contrary,
 136 N. Wedgwood

whilst Sydney was celebrating the sporting achievements of Paralympians in 2000,

funding to disability programmes in Australia underwent significant cutbacks (Darcy
and Cashman 2008b, 240).
Although the Paralympics undoubtedly present a potentially powerful backdrop
to any protest for the rights of people with disabilities, without the direct involve-
ment of disability rights organisations this seems unlikely. Surely it would be bene-
ficial for the disability rights movement to be involved in the Paralympics at every
stage – from the bidding process of host cities to planning accessible facilities. For
example, disability rights activists might see fit to publicly agitate for the IPC to
boycott some cities that have put in a bid to host the next Paralympics because of
their poor treatment of people with disabilities. They may agitate for minimum
criteria for host cities, such as being signatories of (and adherents to) the
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Convention for the Rights of People with Disabilities.

Moreover, when it comes to classification and other disability rights issues, it is
difficult for elite athletes to rock the boat from within the Paralympic movement
because they may not want to bite the hand that feeds them and also because much
of their energy, time and focus is on their own Paralympic campaign.
Thus, the support of the disability rights movement of athletes with disabilities
is important. But the benefits need not all be one-way. Sure not all Paralympians
are politically inclined but some are (or might be, given more support/encourage-
ment), and it may serve the movement well to recruit a highly-visible Paralympian
(or two) to speak out publicly on disability issues or to be the ‘face’ of public
campaigns – a poster girl and/or boy for the movement.
Furthermore, it would be easy enough during the Paralympics – one of the rare
moments when the media spotlight is on people with disabilities – for the disability
rights movement to offer the media and the public critiques of, and alternatives to,
disablist discourses, as well as drawing attention to critical issues facing all people
with disabilities – not just athletes. The idea being not just to critique disablist
discourses from afar but rather to hijack/challenge and/or reframe disablist
discourses using the Paralympics as a medium to gain attention.

Paralympic media coverage challenging or recuperating disablist stereotypes?

Being able to challenge media portrayals of Paralympians is particularly important
because, although media influence is, in most instances, less pertinent than that of
other social institutions such as the family and peer group, in the case of disability
most able-bodied people’s knowledge about and attitudes towards people with
disabilities is constructed indirectly, often by the mass media (Schantz and Gilbert
2008, 35). The Paralympics is uniquely placed to bring disability sport and people
with disabilities to the attention of the able-bodied majority in a way that potentially
subverts dominant narratives and negative stereotypes by portraying Paralympians
as able, active and agentic and thus presenting a challenge to disablist stereotypes
of people with disabilities as weak, pitiful, dependent and passive.
Television and Internet coverage of the Paralympics is now viewed by millions
worldwide (Cashman and Tremblay 2008), with the number of accredited media
going from 1600 in 1996 to 3100 in 2004 (MacDonald 2008, 69). The coverage is,
however, still far less than that of the Olympics, varies from country to country and
is uneven, with men more likely to receive greater coverage and to be photographed
in more active competitive situations than women (Cashman and Tremblay 2008;
 Disability & Society 137

Schantz and Gilbert 2008; Thomas and Smith 2003). Athletes with spinal cord
injuries or amputations – those with acquired disabilities that appear more recognis-
able, correctable or understandable to non-disabled people – are far more likely to
receive media attention than those with congenital disabilities such as cerebral palsy
or other ‘less palatable’ deviations from ‘the norm’ (Howe 2008; Schell and
Duncan 1999; Schantz and Gilbert 2008).
More important than the quantity of coverage is the quality. Studies of media cov-
erage in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, France and Germany of
various Paralympic Games reveal a variety of disempowering narratives (Cashman
and Tremblay 2008; Schell and Duncan 1999; Schantz and Gilbert 2008; Thomas
and Smith 2003). Among them, depictions of Paralympians as ‘tragic victims of per-
sonal misfortune’ inspiring pity or as inspirational ‘supercrips’ who transcend their
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disabilities through sport. Disabled athletes themselves do not necessarily see the
supercrip stereotype as negative (Hardin and Hardin 2008, 31). Disability activists,
however, have long criticised the supercrip stereotype as oppressive because it places
the onus on people with disabilities to ‘make heroic efforts to overcome their physi-
cal or mental limitations and fit in – to be just like everyone else’, thereby casting
disability as an individual problem (Schell and Duncan 1999, 29).
Other common media subtexts include the ‘otherness’ of Paralympians via a
focus on their disabilities rather than their abilities and/or portrayal of the
Paralympics as inferior, rather than parallel, to the Olympics (Howe 2008; Schantz
and Gilbert 2008). Another common stereotype is the ‘purity, innocence and
integrity’ of Paralympians (Cashman and Tremblay 2008, 115). This idealised
image of the Games as ethical, clean and untainted by commercial concerns appears
widely accepted (Reichhart, Dinel, and Schantz 2008, 63). In reality, as the IPC has
become more closely aligned with the IOC, most Paralympians have come to
uncritically adopt mainstream sporting values and structures, which prioritise
competition, elitism, ability, aggression, commercialisation and commodification
(Beaver 2001a; Howe 2008). At the extremes, this includes doping and cheating
(Beaver 2001a, 2001b; Riding 2001). For instance, because classification is not an
exact science, some Paralympians are able to exaggerate their level of ability in
order to compete against less able athletes. Some athletes with spinal cord injury
practice ‘boosting’ – the deliberate self-harm to areas of the body in which they do
not have any sensation but which nonetheless triggers a physiological reaction that
increases blood pressure, thereby enhancing performance (Darcy 2012).
Increasingly appearing alongside damaging narratives and negative stereotypes
are empowering narratives and positive coverage of Paralympians and their sporting
feats (Cashman and Tremblay 2008; Howe 2008, 151) and coverage that ‘problema-
tises received notions of disability’ (Goggin and Newell 2000, 78). For instance,
during the 1996 Atlanta Paralympics some commentators ‘critiqued the ways in
which our society casts individuals with disabilities as inferior, … deplored the Us/
Them dichotomy, and … explicitly recognized prejudice toward persons with
disabilities’ (Schell and Duncan 1999, 43).
There is also evidence of increasing coverage of the Paralympics which parallels
that of the Olympics, with a sport-focused rather than disability-focused approach
(Howe 2008; Schantz and Gilbert 2008). Analysis of newspaper coverage of the
2000 Sydney Paralympics found that 20% of articles focused solely on the nature
of the competition itself (Cashman and Tremblay 2008, 115). On the one hand, this
can be seen as a positive and inclusive development because such coverage focuses
 138 N. Wedgwood

upon the person and their sporting ability first and many Paralympians want to be
viewed as athletes first (Hardin and Hardin 2008). On the other hand, emphasising
medals, records and performances de-emphasises not just an athlete’s disability but
also how they are disabled by society (Smith and Thomas 2005, 58).
More important than the quantity or even quality of reporting is its impact. It
cannot be assumed that media consumers uncritically consume negative coverage or
that positive coverage is not simply recuperated by consumers to fit disablist
preconceptions. Unfortunately, most research to date has been on the media cover-
age, rather than on its impact. A rare exception is a study conducted in Australia in
the years following the Sydney 2000 Games. The Australian Paralympic Committee
commissioned ‘a market and social research company’ to conduct a series of
surveys to monitor attitudes towards the Paralympics and Paralympians (Darcy and
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Cashman 2008a). The Australian Paralympic Committee did not allow scholars to
scrutinise their research methods but they did release the following key ‘findings’,
which suggest the use of leading questions: the ‘majority of Australians’ (93%)
believe that Paralympians are elite athletes who train as hard as able-bodied
athletes; 87% believe that Paralympians should receive the same or more funding
than Olympians; 72% think Paralympians do not receive the recognition they
deserve from the media; but only 57% followed the success of the Australian
Paralympic team in the following Games in Athens 2004 (Darcy and Cashman
2008b, 238; 2008a, 218–219).
Similarly, in 2008 the Organising Committee of the London 2012 Games
commissioned a survey by a ‘research based consultancy’ firm (which believes that
research has the power to challenge conventional thinking and increase public
participation), which ‘revealed’ that ‘most’ of the UK public: see Paralympians as
good role-models for young people (93%); believe Paralympians are as professional
as able-bodied athletes (85%); agree that disability sport requires just as much skill
as able-bodied sport (93%) and; say being disabled should not prevent people from
taking up the opportunity to play sport (96%) (London 2012 Press Office 2008).
However, considerably less respondents wanted more coverage of the Paralympics
(69%) and most could not name a Paralympian (69%). Regardless of whether this
survey is rigorous sociological research or a thinly-veiled ‘push-poll’, it highlights
two important points: that the Paralympics present an excellent opportunity to
educate the general able-bodied public about disability; and that any such education
needs to be informed by genuine concerns for the empowerment and social
inclusion of people with disabilities, rather than by purely commercial concerns.

Conclusions
From its modest beginnings in 1948 with 13 men and three women with spinal cord
injuries from one nation (Britain), the Stoke Mandeville Games later transformed into
the first Paralympics in Rome in 1960 featuring 400 athletes from 21 nations. From
there the Paralympics has developed into the world’s second largest sports event after
the Olympic Games, with the 14th Paralympics in London in 2012 featuring 4200 ath-
letes from 164 nations, representing many different disability types.
Focusing on the Paralympics, this paper shows that disability sport is neither a
panacea for social exclusion, as Guttmann would have it, nor a monolithic disabling
institution, as Hahn would suggest – but rather an incredibly complex phenomena
politically, socially and historically. Thus neither Guttmann nor Hahn has come out
 Disability & Society 139

as a clear (gold medal) winner. I suggest it is time to move beyond such polarised
views based on simple associations between sport and social inclusion or of sport
and disablism. Certainly, Hahn was right to fear and critique sport as a disablist
institution but in the process he dismissed its emancipatory potential. As has been
long established in the field of sports sociology: ‘Sport may be a cultural sphere
that is dominated by the values and relations of the dominant class, but it does not
fully strip … participants of the abilities to think critically and to reshape … and
redefine sport’ (Messner 1990, 8).
One of Hahn’s critiques of sport – that it does not contribute to ‘changing the
broad social, economic, and political environment in a manner which would
promote increased equality’ for people with disabilities (Hahn 1984, 7) – may be
somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is little point in speculating about
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what the Paralympics might look like today if the disability rights movement had
become involved several decades ago. It is, however, worth revisiting the
Paralympics as a potential site for disability activism.
Admittedly, adding sport to the disability rights agenda now may prove difficult
given the primary focus of most elite athletes on sporting rather than political
concerns and also the fact that the Paralympics is no longer in its formative years
with only tentative ties to the enormously powerful IOC. It may well be that
‘marketing of the Olympics and Paralympics as a single entity has undermined the
IPC’s autonomy to use the Paralympic Games to educate the public about athletes
with a disability’ (Howe 2008, 84). Yet, it may also be that new avenues are
opening up to the promotion of disability issues.
In the current era, host cities have adopted a broader agenda than in the past –
with an emphasis not just on the event itself but on the Games as a catalyst for
wider social, economic and cultural outcomes, including ambitious programmes of
commercial and social renewal (Poynter 2009, 31). In the case of the 2012 Games,
an underpinning priority of London’s winning bid to host the Games was its
commitment to be ‘the most accessible Games ever’ through inclusive design,
reinforced by a single organising committee for both Games (Edwards, Schantz,
and Gilbert 2009, 254). According to the committee chairman (Lord Coe): ‘one of
the key legacies the London 2012 Paralympic Games can leave is to change public
and media attitudes towards people with a disability’ (London 2012 Press Office
2008). This of course may just be spin – the long-term impact of the London
Games remains to be seen. Nevertheless, the point remains that the disability rights
movement is conspicuously absent from the disability sport movement. To give the
final word to a disability athlete:

Sport is separate from disability politics … disabled organizations are not interested in
sport – the primary issues are jobs, health, housing etc. So there is no support from dis-
ability organizations – I mean those run by disabled people who are tuned into the politi-
cal debates about disability and are making demands about equality in other areas … We
need to politicise sport – we’re doing it in other areas, like the arts and theatre, but sport
tends to be run by non-disabled people along the lines of non-disabled sport. And that’s
probably not appropriate for most disabled people … (Hargreaves 2000, 195)

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