Well attended, almost sold out sports facilities, hundreds of sporting highlights and Merh as 60 hours of live reporting at the German TV channels ARD and ZDF. Around 2.4 million tickets were sold for the Paralympic competitions in Paris 2024.
This is the highest value for summer paralympics since the 2012 games in London (2.7 million). In short: last year’s Paralympics were a complete success.
“When you see the Paralympics, everything looks like a big perfect world. We are well positioned with the ‘Team D Paralympics’ and have also achieved great success,” says Flora Kliem in the DW interview. The para archer was at the start in Paris for the first time and is still fascinated by the atmosphere a year later.
But behind her enthusiasm there is also a sobering knowledge, because “if you look behind the scenes,” says the 27-year-old, “you can see what structural problems there is”.
No accessibility in sports halls
While Para Sport at the top is increasingly professionalizing, it is a problem at the base of basic things. Many sports halls are still not barrier -free, many sports offers are not inclusive, criticizes the Paralympionician. “It cannot be that as a person with disabilities you have to fight for doing sports. It’s a big problem.”
Kliem knows these problems from his own experience, because the archery system of her club in Göttingen was also difficult to access for people with disabilities a few years ago. “I now have the luxury of a barrier -free bow that was rebuilt because I shoot here. But we don’t have it everywhere.”
Around 55 percent do not do sports
A lack of accessibility on the one hand, a lack of coaches on the other. According to the current sports development report of the German Olympic Sports Association (DOSB), the number of practice management licenses has decreased continuously in recent years. In 2020 there were still more than 45,000 licenses that were awarded, the number decreased by around 15 percent by 2024.
In addition, according to the Federal Government’s participation report from 2021, around 55 percent of people with a disability would not exercise. In contrast, in children and adolescents without impairments, the proportion is only 27 percent.
“Sport is health -preserving and sport promotes social contacts,” says Kliem and emphasizes: “Especially for children with disabilities, it is important that they have the same access to sports as all other children.”
Better training for trainers
Also Dr. Leopold Rupp from the German Disabled Sports Youth (DBSJ) criticizes unequal treatment in the German range of sports. “Infrastructure in sport has to be barrier -free,” warns Rupp and adds: “There must also be exercise managers who can also offer sports for the child in a wheelchair or the child with visual impairment. People have to trust themselves and in the area in this area,” says the 32 -year -old in an interview with the DW.
Rupp, who took part in the Paralympics in London in 2012 as a sports shooter in 2012, sees the significant decline in the often volunteer people a major problem for young people in parasport. Paralympic sport is much more dependent on volunteer structures than the Olympic sport, he says.
Kliem: “I think that’s a torture”
For Kliem, who is currently completing her teaching degree in parallel to competitive sports, the difficulties are also in another area: school. “It is a very big problem that children with disabilities are often excluded from physical education,” says the prospective educator of the DW. “Sometimes the children have to look at when they are doing sports while others are doing and I think that is a torture. That has to be changed.”
Even if children were able to do sports, the teaching student said, many teachers would rather refrain from integrating these children into class. Instead, “the children are then instrumentalized, for example to take the time. They have a completely different status in physical education,” said Kliem. “This excludes them from the class community and a solution has to be found.”
For example, there are some sports that are inclusive and that could be tried out within the physical education. “Nobody can tell me that you could not connect all children to the eyes and then try out blind football or sitting volleyball, for example,” said the athlete.
Rupp sees a need for improvement in the lack of training for teachers. It has to get much better, says the Paralympics participant. “The teachers must be able to have children with disabilities participating in physical education.” That is essential, says Rupp.
Rupp: “Need staying power”
The problems of the parasport basis are clearly recognizable and could also have an impact on the top of the performance in the coming years. Germany is already lagging behind the top of the world and has to watch other nations how they are becoming more and more successful.
At the last Paralympics in Paris, the German athletes won 49 medals, in 2021 in Tokyo it was 43 and 2016 in Brazil 57. China was the top nation with a total of 220 medals last year, followed by Great Britain (124) and the USA (105).
“If we want us to get better internationally, then we need long -term and sensible sports funding with meaningful youth work,” says Rupp. The results will probably not be seen until the coming years. “You need staying power,” said the 32-year-old.