London 2012 was a turning point for the Paralympics with the high number of fans in the sports venues, said Parsons. “The various National Paralympic Committees are investing a lot and governments are investing a lot. It shows that Paralympic sport is now perceived as a professional sport.”
Parsons clarified the claim to perception: “We don’t want to be the little brother of the Olympics. We don’t want to be seen as a mini-Olympics. We want to be the best Paralympic Games that we can be. We think that we have a lot to offer after the Olympics. We have our own history.” Also in 2024 in Paris the event would consist of Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.
The initiative aims to bring more attention to para-sports
The Paralympic Games throw a spotlight on para sports every two years. After the games, on the other hand, it usually becomes quiet again and the attention disappears. That’s why the “Para-Sport” initiative was launched last year, Parsons said. “And that means we’re allocating resources to invest in events between games, from grassroots to World Cups, to support those competitions.”
The initiative will bear fruit, for example, at the Para Athletics World Championships in Paris in July, which will be broadcast by a record number of television channels, says Parsons. “We’re growing, we’re still growing. Some other sports movements have faced the same challenges we’ve faced and we’ve learned from them.”
The “WeThe15” campaign aims to educate people about life with disabilities
In 2021, the IPC also launched the “WeThe15” campaign to focus on the 15 percent of the world’s population who live with a disability. “But first and foremost, it was about educating the other 85 percent of the world about how people with disabilities are doing in various ways. So the goal of the WeThe15 campaign was to educate that 15 percent of the world are made up of people with disabilities, which is one in seven people,” Parsons said.
It is not only about sport, but also about civil society. “We have to help at the national level: how do you change the legislation, how do you change people’s attitudes? That’s what we’re doing with the Paralympics,” said Parsons.