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MONACO — South African Paralympjcs star Oscar Pistorius pleaded on Oct. 23 that he and his fellow Paralympians should be regarded as athletes when they competed and not as handicapped people.
The 21-year-old sprint sensation, who was unable to compete in the Beijing Olympics but made up for that by winning the 400 metres, 100m and 200m at the Paralympics, said that he and his fellow Paralympians had overcome their handicap to compete at the Paralympics.
"This is my message: it is important to assess the athletes on their qualities, their capacities, not their handicap," said Pistorius, who has earned the nickname of the 'Blade Runner' because of the carbon fibre blades that have replaced his lower legs since he was 13 months old.
"It is precisely because they have overcome this handicap that they can compete at the Paralympics.
"Therefore the handicap is not a problem and should not be the preoccupying thought of the spectators."
Pistorius, known as the fastest man on 'no legs', said that was why he had fought a court battle with athletics ruling body the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) over his right to compete at the Beijing Olympics.
He won that battle but failed to qualify, and is set on competing at the 2012 Games in London.
"My goal was not to be controversial," said Pistorius, who had both of his legs amputated as a baby due to a congenital disorder.
"I always had prosthetic legs since I was 13 months old, and I didn't pose any questions when I began to use them to run in, even if they were inconvenient for everyday life.
"I was eventually able to prove that they did not give me an unfair advantage over ablebodied athletes.
"I did not enjoy that experience (the court case) but I believe that it was useful, in the battle against discrimination of handicapped athletes."
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From AFP:
