Athletes With Disability Stereotypes

The Paralympics is meant to be an event which showcases the phenomenal physical abilities performed by athletes despite their disabilities. Unfortunately, the athletes and the disabled population comes off worse due to negative stereotypes created by segregation, lack of funding due to the Paralympics and being separated by social borders. These issues have been brought to the spot light by Keith Storey.
Segregation in sport is used to create a fair playing field by separating athletes based on age, gender and disability. However, athletes with disability come of worse from segregation as it evokes sympathy, pity, or stigma and promotes a negative stereotype of people with disabilities. This completely abolishes the concept of equality as it creates negative stereotypes of people with disability. It makes people look down on athletes with disabilities and makes them look incapable. People need to “see past the disability” and realise that they are just people, it seems that when the word “disabled” is ever mentioned we automatically assume that the person is incapable to complete tasks.
But we seem to miss the bigger picture, is the Paralympics worth all the money and resources to hold a event which will last a few weeks and gross millions of dollars which however don’t go to charities but to major corporations. This is when we need to stop and think, what will benefit the disabled community, a big event that will last a few weeks and is only on once every 4 years or using the funding and resources to benefit the disabled community whether it may be building more schools for people with disabilities or even building recreational facilities for people with