The Paralympics are here and there's so much to see! From fast paced team sports to intense individual races, the world's best athletes with disabilities come together to compete in Olympic-style games. High-impact photography will keep readers engaged while learning about athletes who compete for a gold medal. A photo-illustrated book for elementary readers about Paralympic basketball, tennis, rugby, and fencing events. Includes descriptions of each of these men's and women's wheelchair sports. Readers will be introduced to some rules and how they differ from their Olympic counterpart. Includes Q&A features, table of contents, photo captions, glossary, further resources, and index.
Academic research on the Paralympics and disability sport is growing. University courses, governing bodies, and sporting organisations are also witnessing a rise of interest in disabled sport. This book is therefore timely and of importance. Written by leading scholars, it addresses a variety of topics in relation to the Paralympics and disability sport. These include: the sociology of Paralympic sport; sport coaching at recreational and elite level; sport history and exercise rehabilitation; exercise participation; and future directions for disability sport research. Throughout the book, disability sport is both celebrated and critically examined. Critical questions are raised, and practical suggestions offered, about being a Paralympian, coaching athletes with a disability, and exercise as a form of rehabilitation. Empirical evidence is drawn from different people and various sports. These range from autoethnographic stories from a former Paralympian, to interviews with disability sport administrators, to observations of and interviews with coaches of athletes in the sports of adapted water skiing, para-swimming, and wheelchair basketball, rugby and tennis. The book will be of interest to sociologists of sport, sport coaches, sport and exercise psychologists, disability scholars, qualitative researchers, and disability sporting organisations. This book was published as a special issue of Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health.
Thanks to technological innovations and changing attitudes, people with disabilities are able to participate in a wide range of physical activity. This comprehensive volume looks at more than thirty-five adaptive sports that provide modifications to allow people with disabilities to live an active lifestyle. From skiing to sailing and cycling to volleyball, adaptive sports make exercise, and all of its physical, social, and emotional benefits available to people with disabilities. This engrossing text also explores the Paralympics, which offers disabled athletes the chance to compete with their peers from across the globe while building their confidence and self-esteem.
Wheelchair Sport provides coaches, teachers, and athletes with the information they need to compete and succeed in wheelchair sports. People who use wheelchairs have a greater opportunity than ever before to be physically active at the level of their choosing. Wheelchair Sport equips coaches, teachers, and athletes to develop their minds and bodies to their potential and enjoy their participation in sports.
How does a small provincial city in southern Japan become the site of a world-famous wheelchair marathon that has been attracting the best international athletes since 1981? In More Than Medals, Dennis J. Frost answers this question and addresses the histories of individuals, institutions, and events—the 1964 Paralympics, the FESPIC Games, the Ōita International Wheelchair Marathon, the Nagano Winter Paralympics, and the 2021 Tokyo Summer Games that played important roles in the development of disability sports in Japan. Sporting events in the postwar era, Frost shows, have repeatedly served as forums for addressing the concerns of individuals with disabilities. More Than Medals provides new insights on the cultural and historical nature of disability and demonstrates how sporting events have challenged some stigmas associated with disability, while reinforcing or generating others. Frost analyzes institutional materials and uses close readings of media, biographical sources, and interviews with Japanese athletes to highlight the profound—though often ambiguous—ways in which sports have shaped how postwar Japan has perceived and addressed disability. His novel approach highlights the importance of the Paralympics and the impact that disability sports have had on Japanese society. Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Introduce your child to the Paralympics--where physically disabled world-class athletes exemplify strength, determination, and courage. Lucas and Eddie, two physically disabled friends, visit the Paralympics and cheer on blind and physically challenged athletes as they compete in running, swimming, sitting volleyball, para archery, wheelchair fencing, wheelchair basketball, and more. Readers learn about some of the rules that expedite play and that even the playing field. For example, blind runners wear blindfolds so none of the competitors (some totally blind and some with limited sight) have an unfair advantage. Also, all of the blind competitors are tethered to guides. Author Igor Plohl, who lost the use of his legs after a spinal injury, is a teacher and passionate advocate for raising awareness of physical disability. As a teacher, he knows the questions children ask and how to answer them. A CBC/NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book
This book focuses on the ground-breaking coverage of the London 2012 Paralympic Games by the UK’s publicly owned but commercially funded Channel 4 network, coverage which seemed to deliver a transformational shift in attitudes towards people with disabilities. It sheds important new light on our understanding of media production and its complex interactions with sport and wider society. Drawing on political economy and cultural studies, the book explores why and how a marginalised group was brought into the mainstream by the media, and the key influencing factors and decision-making processes. Featuring interviews with key people involved in the television and digital production structures, as well as organisational archives, it helps us to understand the interplay between creativity and commerce, between editorial and marketing workflows, and about the making of meaning. The book also looks at coverage of the Rio Paralympics, and ahead to the Tokyo Games, and at changing global perceptions of disability through sport. This is fascinating reading for any advanced students, researchers, or sport management or media professionals looking to better understand the media production process or the significance of sport and disability in wider society.
Out of the carnage of World War II comes an unforgettable tale about defying the odds and finding hope in the most harrowing of circumstances. Wheels of Courage tells the stirring story of the soldiers, sailors, and marines who were paralyzed on the battlefield during World War II-at the Battle of the Bulge, on the island of Okinawa, inside Japanese POW camps-only to return to a world unused to dealing with their traumatic injuries. Doctors considered paraplegics to be "dead-enders" and "no-hopers," with the life expectancy of about a year. Societal stigma was so ingrained that playing sports was considered out-of-bounds for so-called "crippled bodies." But servicemen like Johnny Winterholler, a standout athlete from Wyoming before he was captured on Corregidor, and Stan Den Adel, shot in the back just days before the peace treaty ending the war was signed, refused to waste away in their hospital beds. Thanks to medical advances and the dedication of innovative physicians and rehabilitation coaches, they asserted their right to a life without limitations. The paralyzed veterans formed the first wheelchair basketball teams, and soon the Rolling Devils, the Flying Wheels, and the Gizz Kids were barnstorming the nation and filling arenas with cheering, incredulous fans. The wounded-warriors-turned-playmakers were joined by their British counterparts, led by the indomitable Dr. Ludwig Guttmann. Together, they triggered the birth of the Paralympic Games and opened the gymnasium doors to those with other disabilities, including survivors of the polio epidemic in the 1950s.Much as Jackie Robinson's breakthrough into the major leagues served as an opening salvo in the civil rights movement, these athletes helped jump-start a global movement about human adaptability. Their unlikely heroics on the court showed the world that it is ability, not disability, that matters most. Off the court, their push for equal rights led to dramatic changes in how civilized societies treat individuals with disabilities: from kneeling buses and curb cutouts to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Their saga is yet another lasting legacy of the Greatest Generation, one that has been long overlooked. Drawing on the veterans' own words, stories, and memories about this pioneering era, David Davis has crafted a narrative of survival, resilience, and triumph for sports fans and athletes, history buffs and military veterans, and people with and without disabilities.
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