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.

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