What was the impact of the London 2012 Paralympics for disabled people?

Christopher Brown Senior Lecturer in Sports Development, University of Hertfordshire

This summer marks ten years since London hosted the 2012 Paralympics. The Paralympics hoped to have a lasting legacy of improving access to and participation in sports for disabled people. But the data shows the 2012 Paralympics Games made no meaningful differences for disabled people in this regard.

One year after the 2012 Paralympics, around 20% of disabled people in England were shown to participate in sports at least once a week. By 2016, this number had declined to only 17%. Ten years on from the Paralympics Games, disabled people’s monthly participation in sports is still less than half that of non-disabled people in England.

The Paralympics on its own isn’t enough to create more sporting opportunities for disabled people. Instead, leveraging a sport mega event is vital. This means making plans to improve sports participation on the back of it – including, crucially, providing opportunities for people to participate in different sports before, during, and after the event. Yet the research shows this largely didn’t happen, making the 2012 Paralympics a missed opportunity to turn interest in sports into regular participation.

In part, this was because a specific plan to create lasting sporting opportunities for disabled people wasn’t announced until 2010. This didn’t help sports organizations to prepare in terms of having the resources and knowledge to cope with increased demand following the Games. Waiting lists to join clubs weren’t uncommon as a result.

Read more: How to include disabled children in sports at school

It’s also worth noting that the Paralympics doesn’t necessarily prove inspiring to everyone who may be interested in participating in sport. While some disabled people find the Paralympics Games empowering and inspiring, for others, it may actually be disempowering.

The Paralympics Games is an exclusive event in which only a fraction of disabled people ever qualifies to participate in. The achievements of Paralympians may have no relevance in the day-to-day lives of most disabled people, perhaps explaining why they don’t inspire everyone. Research shows that peer role models, rather than Paralympians, are actually more likely to inspire physical activity.

The Paralympics may even perpetuate disability stereotypes, leading to exclusion for those who don’t meet the Paralympic ideal. And since the event isn’t representative of most people’s experience of disability, it may lead to an underappreciation of the barriers and challenges that disabled people face.

The London 2012 Paralympics also relied on the " mainstreaming " policy to promote sports participation of disabled people. Mainstreaming is where non-disabled sports organizations offer sporting opportunities for disabled people. The problem has been the lack of clarity as to how this works in practice. Mainstream organizations have sometimes struggled to provide suitable sports opportunities due to a lack of knowledge or resources.

Organizations can sometimes view disability inclusion as an afterthought rather than a core commitment. And due to the limited and patchy effectiveness of mainstreaming, many organizations operate in the sector. This can cause confusion and unnecessary complexity for people looking to get involved in sports. A lack of awareness of sporting opportunities can also be seen as a symptom of the complex landscape of sports for disabled people.

Ableism is still a problem for many disabled people who want to participate in sports. Many disabled students report feeling excluded from physical education, and institutionalized ableist practices within mainstream sports organizations continue to limit sports access for disabled people.

Read more: Ableist language is still a problem when it comes to disability inclusion

For example, some club settings only fully include disabled people if they can participate in a sport separately from non-disabled people. Disabled people can sometimes be forced to adapt to how the club provides a sport, rather than the club adapting the sport to best meet that person’s needs. 

Ableism constrains participation by negatively shaping what many people think sport should look like, or who sport is for.

So what was the impact of the London 2012 Paralympics in improving disability inclusion in sport? It’s clear that simply hosting the Paralympics in 2012 wasn’t enough to improve access and participation in sports for disabled people throughout the UK. To achieve true change, and improve disability inclusion, systemic, social, and economic barriers to participation all need to be addressed.

Unfortunately, a number of these barriers to disability inclusion still exist and hinder sports participation. The 2012 Paralympics was hosted amid a backdrop of recession and austerity. Austerity measures disproportionately impacted disabled people – with many disabled people limiting their participation in sports due to the fear of losing benefits if they were seen to be active.

And even ten years on, transport is not always accessible to disabled people – a barrier of particular importance when local sporting opportunities may not be available. Some sporting sites are also inaccessible, so even if a person wants to get involved, they may not be able to.

The pandemic has now added another obstacle in the journey to create change, even reversing some of the progress made in recent years. Research suggests there’s now less support to help disabled people to participate in different sports.

One of the impacts of the London 2012 Paralympics was to help to raise the profile of parasport and disability in society to some extent. But any increases in sports participation that happened as a result, were temporary. To truly improve participation in sport, the challenges and barriers that prevent disabled people from participating in both sport and society need to be addressed. We cannot simply rely on a two-week elite sporting event like the London 2012 Paralympics to do this.

What was the impact of the London 2012 Paralympics for disabled people? is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.0