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Do you know? Disabled athletes also cheat.
Official number | Internet + Sports
Author | Sisi
At the end of the Tokyo Paralympic Games, 4,403 Paralympic athletes from all over the world presented us with an inspirational drama in the arena, and the Paralympic Games once became the spiritual pillar of the people.
Before the opening, Kate Downie, a former Australian swimmer with disabilities, was interviewed by Australian media outlet SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) to expose the shocking truth behind the Paralympic Games.
According to Kate, australian swimmers have distorted their disabilities in order to compete with athletes with more severe disabilities, and the Australian Swimming Association has also covered up the truth about paralympic cheating.
(Kate interviewed by SBS)
Paralympic athletes are divided into ten levels according to the degree of disability, which include amputation degree, muscle strength, joint flexibility, etc., that is, athletes will be graded before the competition, and then compete with athletes of the same level.
According to Kate, some athletes cheat in various ways in order to be in the same group as athletes with higher disabilities. For example, some athletes will be thrown into the snow and ice so that their muscles and joints will be much stiffer than usual, or they will deliberately limp up during the test; in order to reduce endurance and physical strength, limit the flexibility, strength and fine motor skills of the limbs before the test, and even some able-bodied people will pretend to be disabled to participate in the competition, some coaches train them to imitate the way of movement with disability symptoms, such as clenching their fists when swimming or pedaling on one leg, such training to achieve the effect of muscle memory, After passing the test, the cheating athlete competes with the real disabled player, which becomes a veritable dimensionality reduction blow.
This makes it easy to break records to receive taxpayer-funded scholarships, grants, and business sponsorships. The news immediately shocked the sports world, and if this were the case, these acts would have been fundamentally contrary to the spirit of the Paralympic Games.
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Is there anyone watching the Paralympic Games?
The Paralympic Games may have a much higher viewing rate than you think. The London 2012 Paralympic Games ratings were very satisfactory to the London Organising Committee, and according to the BBC, the Paralympic ratings were much higher than expected, which also made British TV Channel 4, which received exclusive broadcast rights, decide to adjust its reporting plan.
A spokesman for the London Organising Committee said the Paralympic Games were so popular in Britain that tickets were snapped up as soon as they came out, with 10,000 extra tickets a day often sold out within minutes. British swimmer Ellie Symonds surprised broadcasters when they broke the world record and won the gold medal, which surprised the broadcasters.
According to the original plan, Channel 4 and sister channel More4 broadcast Paralympic games every afternoon. Due to the "unexpectedly" high ratings, Channel 4 decided to broadcast Paralympic games all day from 7 a.m. to 23:15 p.m. In the end, more than 3.8 billion people watched the London Paralympic Games.
The cumulative number of views of the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games is more than 4.1 billion, and the ratings of the Tokyo Paralympic Games have not yet been released, but it is reported that it is expected to surpass Rio and reach 4.25 billion views. Since so many people watch, it will naturally attract the attention of sponsors.
The Paralympic Games have two loyal partners, one is BP Oil and the other is Toyota. BP Petroleum, whose full name is British Petroleum, is one of the world's largest private oil companies and a loyal partner of the Paralympic Games. Since 2008, BP has established contacts with the Olympic Committee, officially became a sponsor of the London Olympic Games in 2012, and then sponsored various sports events for the disabled, such as the World Championship of Sleigh Hockey, the European Paralympic Competition, etc., to promote the development of para sports.
Duncan Blake, BP's director of global brand marketing, said in an interview with Marketing Weekly that the Paralympic Games are a neglected treasure for brands. BP chose the Paralympic Games because the company shares the same values as the Paralympics, and Duncan Blake said in an interview that you don't need to explain to the public why it sponsors the Paralympics, it's self-evident that no one would object to a business that supports people with disabilities. So sponsoring the Paralympics is an excellent option, with benefits and no harm.
Toyota believes that their core values coincide with the Paralympic Games. Toyota, the Global Partner of the Paralympic Games, will sponsor $5 million to support each American Paralympic athlete in the 2021 Tokyo Paralympic Games and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
This is not the first time Toyota has sponsored Paralympic athletes. In fact, as early as 2017, the car brand established an eight-year partnership with the Irish Paralympic Games.
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In the face of interests, the spirit of sportsmanship is gone
In addition to paralympic events, Paralympic athletes often have the endorsement of the brand side, and after winning the medal, they will become the darling of the brand side. For paralympic athletes, the Paralympic Games are not only a stage to prove themselves and inspire people with disabilities around the world, but also a great opportunity to get sponsorship.
South African disabled sprinter Oscar Pistorius has been called "Blade Warrior", "Bolt at the Paralympic Games". Oscar has participated in 3 Paralympic Games, won 6 gold medals, dazzling results naturally attract the attention of sponsors, Oscar can get two million dollars a year from Nike and telecom operator BT sponsorship fees, although compared with the sponsorship fees of top athletes may not be much, but it is already a sky-high price among disabled athletes.
Winning a medal means bonuses, fame, sponsorship, social influence, and in the face of real interests, many athletes with disabilities choose to put sportsmanship behind.
The grading system for paralympic athletes was not much of a controversy a few years ago, but in recent years, paralympic sports have grown into a big business, with countries and sponsors pouring millions of dollars into funding outstanding paralympic athletes. Even without a multimillion-dollar cooperation agreement, high-performing athletes have access to other opportunities, including sponsorship fees, free boot camps and stipends.
In the United States, elite athletes with disabilities can live and train for free at Olympic training centers; Australian athletes with disabilities receive tens of thousands of dollars in government grants and other allowances, including university scholarships, vehicles and housing. These are enough to "tempt" some athletes to be opportunistic.
The biggest lie in the history of the Paralympic Games is the Spanish men's wheelchair basketball team, which consisted of 12 intellectually disabled athletes who defeated Portugal, Brazil and Japan with amazing results, and finally won the Paralympic basketball tournament. As a result, the Olympic Committee found that of the twelve team members, only two of the team members had disabilities, and the others were normal people. The Olympic Committee imposed a severe penalty on this – stripping the gold medal.
During the 2016 Paralympic Games, a number of athletes and their coaches also claimed that there was a phenomenon of athlete cheating and asked for reclassification, and then in a 2017 survey, the British "Guardian" reported that multi-sport disabled athletes used tape to fix their limbs for a long time before the grading exam to reduce flexibility, and took cold showers to aggravate the already weak muscle tone of cerebral palsy patients.
Australian cyclist Amanda Reid was photographed driving earlier, but during the grading test, she was on crutches and pretended to be visually impaired.
Whether the Paralympic Games are more athletic or more "witty" than who is more "witty" sounds more absurd than illegal drug use. However, the Paralympic Organizing Committee does not seem to have the idea of restructuring, so more and more Paralympic athletes hope to attract enough attention by speaking out.
With the growing attention of the Paralympic Games, it has a positive impact on the promotion of the sports for the disabled, but if unfair things cannot be eliminated, the courage, perseverance, inspiration and fairness symbolized by the Paralympic Games will also disappear.