Accessibility: 'Paralympic movement needs to work harder at representation of disability community'
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00:00Let's keep talking then about these games here in Paris and where the Paralympic movement is at.
00:06I'm delighted to welcome to the program this afternoon Richard Whitehead. He is
00:10a two-time British Paralympic champion winning gold in the 200 meters in London 2012 as well
00:16as in Rio 2016. He's live with us here in Paris this afternoon. Good afternoon. Thanks for joining
00:21us. Pleased to have you on the program. First of all in an interview recently you said these
00:28Paralympic games here in Paris have the potential to be transformative. I wondered what you meant
00:34by that. I think it's around the real opinions and it's an enrichment opportunity for the city.
00:42Obviously as we know Paris is such a historic city that was founded in the 4th century BC and
00:50for me being an athlete that even now runs around the city and I really see an appetite for
00:56Paralympic sport. A lot of people are asking about my disability. Obviously I'm a double leg amputee
01:03so my disability is very visible and people while I'm running around the parks running
01:09through the city are asking about the Paralympic games and also about disability and to have more
01:15of a visibility themselves about inclusion. It is worth talking a bit about your own career
01:21because it has been rather remarkable. You've been representing Great Britain since at least
01:272006. That was in the winter games in the sledge hockey. You then moved on to focusing on running
01:33in the summer games. As I said you've won a handful of medals for your country. I just wonder then in
01:39the nearly two decades that you've been doing this on the world stage in different sports
01:44look what's changed for the better in terms of how para-athletes are represented,
01:50how they're supported and where does more work need to be done still?
01:55Yeah I started in marathon running and then went to winter sport and then obviously 12 years within
02:03the Paralympic movement and now I'm back running marathons. My next marathon is in Chicago but I
02:08think for me the positivity around the Paralympics is real. Starting to work on the enrichment of
02:16the world around disability, equality, accessibility but there's still a lot of
02:22work around the word inclusion. I feel that the Paralympic movement doesn't represent the whole
02:29disability community and when I say that we look at some of the disability groups such as
02:38the learning disability group doesn't have a big representation, the hearing impairment group and
02:44also some of the impairment groups that are more physically disabled. So my event isn't actually
02:51in the games this year which is a real disappointment. Your listeners and your viewers will
02:57if you look at Richard White at 200 Meters London 2012 you'll see the great impact that an event
03:03such as mine has on the community but also as being in Paris I think it's really important that
03:10the people of Paris see a real variety of events and also see that disability is so varied and
03:19individual and that you need to be very dynamic to support people with disabilities. I think
03:25if I was to criticise the Paralympic movement it would be not being diverse enough and being seen
03:32more towards the able-bodied eye and for me it needs to be more towards the person with a
03:38disability to inspire the next generation of leaders of tomorrow which are young people
03:43with disabilities. You mentioned a word earlier that I wanted to ask you about and that's
03:48accessibility because as we've been talking about you're here in Paris for these games and I don't
03:54know to what extent you've been interacting with the Paris public transport yet but the city did
03:59set itself a struggle, a goal of trying to be accessible for everyone. I don't know whether
04:07you found that to be the case or not because there are plenty of people with disabilities
04:11in this city who say look it was a good goal but Paris hasn't achieved that yet. Yes and we all know
04:18that it does take time but I think the Paralympics is an opportunity of enrichment so
04:26that enrichment might take decades to actually implement but there needs to be a starting
04:33point and I really feel the vibe and the appetite for the people of Paris being around. I get so
04:42many people talking about, I was running yesterday and somebody stopped me in the park
04:48and they were talking about my prosthetics and do I run and the Paralympic games and disability and
04:54it was amazing that young people and older people want to get more information
04:59about the actual impairments themselves but going back to your question around the accessibility I
05:05think the public transport is a real issue. Transport generally is a big issue for people
05:11with disabilities and if we look at the stadiums themselves and see only people that are able-bodied
05:19watching disability sport I think the games would have failed. We need to have more people
05:24with disabilities in the stadium representing all areas of the community because seeing is believing
05:32and you need to see that it's possible within disability sport but there is still a long way
05:37to go with accessibility but also the IPC, the Paralympic movement need to work harder
05:44at representation of the disability community. And just a final question for you for viewers
05:49who are tuning in who are getting excited now about the Paralympic games that perhaps aren't
05:53following the particular sports or the athletes that closely. Who are you excited about? Who should
05:59we be watching out for over the next 10 days or so? One thing while watching the opening
06:06ceremony last night I feel really jealous of the French public having this opportunity.
06:15The French athletes really connecting with the public and the spectators having the patriotic
06:21side of sport but also as somebody that loves Paralympic sport generally I love the wheelchair
06:29rugby. Obviously the Great Britain team were the Paralympic gold medalists in Tokyo so for them to
06:35have a crowd in France and be buoyed by that crowd is really important. With the swimmings
06:43incredible seeing all the disabilities overcoming their impairments to obviously get to the finish
06:49line but obviously being a massive athletics fan like the marathon the wheelchair marathon
06:55something that I love watching and the sprint events like the one and two hundred meter events
07:00are kind of the blue ribbon events of the games. So much for us to get excited about it's been a
07:07pleasure to talk to you this afternoon and get your perspective. Thank you so much sir that was
07:12Richard Whitehead the British Paralympic champion. Thank you sir.