What happened to the Paralympics?
September 18th, 2008 by Ingrid Cliff
Is it just me or did anyone else notice there was a Paralypics on? I mean the Para-Olympians Australia sent over won more medals than for the “other” Olympics, but coverage on the news and all of the other TV channels was limited to 10 seconds at the tail end of the news bulletin. Cats stuck in walls of houses got more coverage than these brilliant athletes!
All I can say is congratulations to these men and women who have overcome the odds twice - once with their disability and once winning or simply competing in these events. Well done!
As for the media - you have totally missed the point by not covering their successes. The inspiration they provide by their lives is the stuff of golden front pages!
I see this in many businesses who don’t look at giving people with disabilities a go. We still discriminate against people who are different. We don’t look at their abilities instead of their disabilities and in doing so we rob our businesses of potentially highly successful employees.
The next time you have a vacancy, consider a person with a disability. Who knows you may end up with a paralympian on your team!
Until next time
Ingrid Cliff
We put your business into words
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 7:50 pm and is filed under Small Business Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 18th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I totally agree, and further more chanel 2.1 gave the briefest of summaries whilst channel2.2 covered a lot more. Where is their ticket parade? Who will be there to welcome them home?
Simply amazing to watch, the courage the pue joy of participating, their team spirit of going into events they have never tried just to make up the team!!! This signifies the Olympic spirit so much more than gold medals tally can ever do!!!!
Congratulations to all para-olympians at 2008 Beiijing Games
cheers!!!
Gail
September 21st, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I got choked up watching the bit about the volunteers providing new arms and limbs for competitors from less well off countries! My favourite was the wheelchair rugby. Man those guys are tough.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I totally agree with Ingrid. I actually don’t understand why we have two seperate Olympics to start with. I understand having seperate individual events based on capabilities but to segregate is to discriminate in my view.
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I completely agree - there was also minimal coverage in the news!
September 23rd, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I totally agree with you on this one, minimal coverage, praise and recognition and it never seems to change. Also bet sposorship deals weren’t getting sealed like they would have been at the other Olympics.
September 28th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
I totally agree Ingrid and I had been thinking the same thing, not enough sponser money being thrown at the Paralympics I suppose - such a shame as these athletes have to work so much harder I assume.