Reimagining the definition of the modern Olympian
By bringing so many Olympic events into the very heart of a temporarily remodeled Paris, the 2024 Paris Olympiad has triumphantly managed to inject a refreshing, reinvigorated spirit into the entire Olympic movement. But as these Games move towards their conclusion, one important innovation was overlooked.
The 2024 Paralympic Games are due to be held a mere 17 days after the Olympic Games, from August 28 to September 8, at which point most of us will be well and truly “Olympicked out”, having long shelved our newfound enthusiasm for speed climbing and kayak cross for another four years and returned to our normal lives. Which means that the exploits and inspirational stories of thousands of international athletes competing in Paris in a few weeks’ time will be largely, and needlessly, ignored.
Wouldn’t it make much more sense to simply combine the two events into one extended three-week period? That way the Paralympians can get the attention they richly deserve, while the rest of us—including the Olympic athletes—will be naturally much more exposed to, and consequently impressed by, what they are doing.
Admittedly, such a large-scale merger would make things considerably more complicated on a number of logistical fronts, from housing to scheduling to infrastructure and much more besides. But put in its proper perspective—such as appreciating what was involved to transform the city of Paris into an athletic theme park—such concerns are pretty minor.
Rather more significantly, the International Olympic Committee—hardly the most forward-thinking of organizations, for whom the prospect of a women’s decathlon is somehow overwhelmingly problematic—would surely be stiffly opposed to the idea.
But a moment’s reflection reveals that it is clearly the right thing to do, and the real question shouldn’t be if, but when. Because conceptually, separating the Paralympics and Olympics is exactly like separating the Olympics into two distinct Games for men and women; and it’s instructive to appreciate that from a gender perspective things have historically moved in precisely the opposite direction, with the original, all-male modern Olympics gradually extended to include all manner of women’s events until something like genuine parity was eventually established (aside from the decathlon, that is), to the widespread benefit of both participants and spectators.
The history of the Paralympic movement was very different, however, as doubtless the prospect of Paralympic athletes was well below even Pierre de Coubertin’s dismissively sexist radar screen. It wasn’t until 1948 before Ludwig Guttmann came up with the pioneering idea of the first Stoke Mandeville Games: 16 war veterans in wheelchairs participating in an archery competition.
By 1960, The Stoke Mandeville Games had evolved into the Paralympic Games, with the first Winter Paralympic Games occurring in 1976. Finally, in the late 1980s, an agreement was reached between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), that gave rise to the modern practice where the Paralympic Games are held following the Olympics in the same venues.
And there, I suspect, is the rub. Because in order to harmoniously blend the two events, the principal stumbling block isn’t so much logistical but organizational: requiring the IOC and IPC to somehow combine forces into one new joint governing body.
Which would, in turn, mean that the traditionally stodgy attitude of the IOC would have to change. And the chances of that happening strike me as roughly equivalent to me winning a gold medal at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
Howard Burton, August 8, 2024
Howard is the author of six non-fiction books on various topics and he is the Director of Pandemic Perspectives (2022), Through the Mirror of Chess: A Cultural Exploration (2023), Raphael: A Portrait (2024) and Botticelli’s Primavera (2025) which is the first film in our Renaissance Masterpieces Series.
