Unstoppable Spirit

      Welcome to this week's blog post, the topic for this week is my opinion on whether or not the Special Olympics should remain separate from the Paralympics. As well as whether or not I believe individuals with an intellectual disability should be allowed to participate in Paralympic events. Primarily, I believe these questions come down to fairness and overall experience for the athletes of both the Special Olympics and the Paralympics. In my opinion, I think the two organizations should remain separate from each other, mostly due to them having completely different fundamental goals.       Now of course both organizations pride themselves on ensuring fairness for all of their athletes, although it is the other ways the Paralympics is designed that differs greatly from the Special Olympics. What I mean by this is that the Paralympics is engineered to be an elite level high performance competition, where athletes train at maximum effort to meet str...

     Hello and welcome to this week's blog post, the topic oof this is the overall benefits of joining a sport or adaptive sport. As well as some suggestions of my favorite sports I recommend participating in. Some of the key benefits that are going to be discussed are learning teamwork, making lifelong friends, communication skills, and overall health.       First benefit is learning how to be on a team and teamwork, this is an extremely important skill for a lot of aspects in life. This benefit is also great at building self-confidence as well as feeling a sense of unity due to having a whole team that has your back. Another benefit is making lifelong friends from teammates and opponents. Making these friends leads to your brain releasing dopamine, which of course is fantastic for your overall mental health. To piggyback off of the previous two benefits mentioned is learning communication skills. Being on a sports team, you are forced to communicate ...

      For this week's blog post I am going to reflect on and compare the medical model of disability to the biopsychosocial model. As well as on how to better educate people to understand that someone with a disability does not need to be "fixed." First, let me break down what the medical model of disability is, then I will discuss the problems with this model. The framework behind this model is that an individual with a disability must be treated or "fixed," which innately frames a disability as a problem (Figure 1). Now of course there is plenty of medical care and technology that can greatly improve the quality of life for someone with a disability. Although this model overlooks the larger issue of societal barriers put onto people with disabilities. (Figure 1: Image of Medical Model Verse Biopsychosocial Model of Disability)      This is where the biopsychosocial model prevails with a better and more realistic understanding of disabilities in society. T...

     Welcome all new and returning readers to my blog page, this week's blog post is all about inclusion in sports. The questions that are being discussed in this week's post are, first should all athletes with any type of disability be allowed to be classified for any sport? As well as should Paralympic sports be fully inclusive and how to create a fair playing field with so many different disabilities?       I believe in theory, all athletes no matter the disabilities should be allowed to be classified in any sport. I think that total inclusion and equality is the true way and backbone of the Paralympics. Although, this is a beautiful ideology in theory, putting it into practice a lot harder than it seems. This would immediately lead to some serious fairness issues, because of how different disabilities affect the body in several ways. For example, an athlete with a mobility disability would be competing under different physical conditions than an at...

      Hello to all of my amazing readers out there, we have another thought-provoking topic this week. That topic being the discussion of the IPC's ban on Russia and Belarus from participating as countries in the Paralympics. First, I must discuss the reasons for this ban, in order to make any valid arguments for or against it. The IPC banned Russia and Belarus from competing in the Paralympics back in 2022, due to Russia's invasion into Ukraine. Although, in 2023 the original ban was turned into a partial ban, allowing athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate as "neutrals" (World Today Journal, 2026). This meant that the athletes could participate (Figure 2), although their countries would not be represented anywhere at the Paralympics (World Today Journal, 2026). (Figure 1: Image of the IPC making the 2022 ban on Russia and Belarus)      I believe the IPC is wrong for putting restrictions on athletes, just because the country they represent is at w...

           Welcome readers to this week's blog post, the topic for this week is all about how to increase the media coverage of the Paralympics. As well as addressing the issue of disabled athletes being portrayed by the media as “villains, supercrips, or helpless.”      I believe the first major step forward would be guaranteeing consistent live coverage, athlete features focused on performance, and year-round reporting not just attention every two years (Figure 1). This would also include advertisements that are separate from the Olympics, the current advertisements seem to put the Paralympics as a second thought to the Olympics. Or that the Paralympics is just an extension to the Olympics, even though it is its own event. (Figure 1: The difference of online article between the Olympics and Paralympics)      However, I do not think increasing airtime alone would be enough. The way athletes with disabilities...