#Disability athletics

[enbycrip]

Her name is Valentina Petrillo and she is a visually-impaired sprinter.

Time to support her, because even without the racism element I expect she will be getting some flak from Awful, Awful People.

[studynewsindia]

Paralympic Games: Celebrating Athletic Excellence

Paralympic Games: Celebrating Athletic Excellence for atheletics. The Paralympic Games are a top event that highlights athletes with physical, visual, intellectual, and sensory disabilities. These Games show off the amazing skills and hard work of para-athletes. They prove that people with disabilities can achieve great things. The Paralympic movement fights for everyone to have the same chances…

[rimbaudsleg]

Gently down the stairs

[cy-cyborg]

I realised my recent paralympics posts could be read as, "i hate the paralympics" kind of stuff and thats not what i wanted. Its important to be able to critisise the things we love, and the reason why i had so many strong feelings/opinions is because i do genuinely love and care about the Paralympics and disability sports as a whole. So with the paralympics due to start in a few weeks (the 28th of August) please, if you're able to, tune in, even if it's just for the highlights.

The Paralympics themselves have a lot of issues which I already talked about, but a good amount of those issues stem from a perceived lack of interest/care from the public and the idea that "no one will care" if things arent right for us. It's much harder to justify not paying the athletes as much as their abled counterparts when they get the same publicity, it's harder for the organisers and people behind the scenes to get away with mistreatment when there's more eyes watching and more pressure to fix the issues. The athletes deserve respect, they deserve equal pay (which mostly comes from advertisers/sponsors, which depend on viewership) and their hard work deserves to be seen as more than just a funny joke or inspiration porn tear-jerker. Engage with places that treat the event and participants with the dignity it deserves.

If you're in Australia, channel 9 will be showing and streaming the highlights for free, but Stan Sports will be showing everything from every event - which is an absolutely MASSIVE thing. The entire paralympics have never been televised in Australia before, its only ever been highlights and some of the games of the more well-known sports. It sucks its locked behind a premium paywall but so was the full Olympics coverage this year, so it's not fully unique to us at least.

As for international viewers, try and find where things are for you and if they aren't being shown, put pressure on your TV networks/streaming services to include it for next time, or to include similar things like the disabled events at the commonwealth games (for those in commonwealth countries) or other global disabled sporting events - which can include sports not in the Paralympics!

[arkeusruin]

A more casual design for my para track runner phantom (ignore that I switched the legs I'm an idiot)

[mollysunder]

I don't really love the idea of Viktor becoming horribly scarred/disfigured by Jinx's rocket. Mostly because I don't care for the fact that most of the characters given harsher scrutiny by the story are nearly all disabled one way or another. Characters like Silco, Singed, Jinx, Finn and the chembarons are all either physically disabled, mentally ill, scarred, or some combination of all three.

Obviously Viktor started off the show with a disability, it's just that his condition will worsen in a way that coincides with his morals becoming more dubious is a bad look. I know all the characters are supposed to be complex, but the narrative gives a light handed critique on Piltovan characters compared to it's Zaun cast, at least in the first season anyway.

[theatrekidenergy]

I JUST FOUND OUT I CAN BIKE WITHOUT* PAIN!!!!! I JUST FOUND OUT I CAN BIKE WITHOUT PAIN!!!!!!! I NOW HAVE TWO PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES I CAN DO WITHOUT PAIN!!!!!!! I CAN BIKE WHEN IM NOT FIGURE SKATING!!!!!!! IM GENUINELY SOBBING RIGHT NOW THIS IS SUCH A MASSIVE THING FOR ME YOU DONT UNDERSTAND

* = check tags for explanation

[dailyhistoryposts]

On This Day In History

May 29th, 2001: The Supreme Court of the United States declares that Casey Martin, a disabled golfer , is allowed to use a golf cart on the PGA tour.

[dontforgetukraine]

"It’s crucial that today’s Ukrainian Paralympians motivate the thousands of Ukrainians who have suffered at the hands of the aggressor nation, showing them that they can and should return to a full and meaningful life."

—Valerii Sushkevych, President of the National Committee of Sports for the Disabled of Ukraine

Source: Ukrainian Paralympians push through loss and devastation to make history in Paris

[cosmohydrargyrum]

trying not to explode when I realize I will always be held to the standard of an abled athlete by other people even though I'm not, while also having to do everything to prevent holding myself to the standard of an abled athlete, because I'm not.

[yourdailyqueer]

Karolina Hamer

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Bisexual

DOB: 12 February 1981

Ethnicity: White - Polish

Occupation: Paralympic swimmer, disability rights activist

Note 1: In 2018 she publicly came out as bisexual becoming the first active Polish sportswoman to do so.

Note 2: Has Paraparesis

[fancyhandsbakery]

Shout out to the disabaled people who were active kids. Who were always outside. Who were always playing sports. Who tried to remain athletic for as long as possible. Who one day had to quit the one thing that made them happy because it was just to draining. Was just too painful. And now when you see family they are like ‘Oh do you still play such and such’ and you have to be like ‘no, I had to quit.’ And their like ‘why’ and you’re like ‘I was to sick’ and then they go ‘you should get back into it’ and you internally scream because lifting your backpack causes you to be out of breath, your muscles hurt for weeks after squatting once to get something in a low cupboard, being outside in low 70/60 degree weather makes you sweat through your shirt and makes you so dehydrated.

[arkeusruin]

My attempt at drawing phantom ghoul as a para track runner for an au I might be making

[thedisabilitybookarchive]

Lis Hartel- Disabled Olympian, Equestrian Champion

Olympic season is in full swing, so it seems only appropriate to give a little love to some of history's most notable disabled Olympians as the games get underway. What better place to start than with the story of Lis Hartel and the impact she had upon equstrian sport.

[ID: A book cover. The cover art shows a brown horse being led by a woman in a black dressage suit. The background is light blue. A beam of light is shining on the woman and horse. Text above them reads: The title “Jubilee” in large red writing, “The First Therapy and an Olympic Dream” below in smaller black writing. “By KT Johnson” and “Illustrated by Anabella Ortiz” below in smaller, black capitals. /end]

🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎 [22 horse emojis]

Hartel was trained in the art of equestrian sport from a fairly young age, regularly competing in showjumping and dressage competitions by her teens, and, eventually becoming the Danish dressage champions in 1943 and 1944. In September of the latter year, at the age of 23 and whilst pregnant with her second daughter, Hartel contracted polio.

The disease left her paralysed below the knees, though she decided to continue her equestrian career against medical advice.

In 1947, then, Hartel finished second at the Scandinavian championships. She would then win a silver medal in individual dressage at the 1952 Olympics, becoming one of the first four women to compete in Olympic equestrian sport against men, and only losing out on the gold by 20 points, coming second to Swedish rider Henri Saint Cyr. At the 1956 Olympics, she would go on to be awarded another silver medal in individual dressage, again only coming second to Henri Saint Cyr.

Hartel was also the Danish dressage champion from 1952-54, securing the title again in both 1956 and 1959.

She eventually retired from competitive riding sometime later but continued to coach, give demonstrations, and raise money for polio survivors and therapy riding for disabled people.

In 1992, Hartel was inducted into Denmark's Hall of Fame. Two years later, in 1994, she became the first Scandinavian to be inducted into the International Women's Hall of Fame, and, in 2005, she was named one of Denmark's top ten all-time athletes, an honour she still holds today.

Hartel would pass away in 2009, at the age of 87, but her legacy as a decorated Olympian, equestrian, and great disabled athlete continues to live on.

The Lis Hartel Foundation in the Netherlands continued her work in the disabled community, by creating and providing riding opportunities for disabled riders.

Her Olympic success and position as a disabled athlete was greatly admired at the time and inspired many other "fledgling" movements, including the momentum that would eventually lead to the formation of the Riding for Disabled People's Association in the UK.

She has been written about countless times, with her story even being transformed into a children's educational picture book by KT Johnson (information for which can be found in the archive).

Yes, Hartel's impact on both equestrian sport and sporting history as a whole can never be denied. And so let us close out this Disability Pride Month by honouring a great disabled champion:

[ID: Black and white photograph of Lis Hartel riding a horse. /end]

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

[theatrekidenergy]

ME CORE ME CORE ME CORE

As a physically disabled figure skater, I feel so seen 🥹

[truebuggy]

Any kind of advocacy for a marginalized group that ignores or scapegoats the members of the group who can't assimilate or are very obviously different than the non-marginalized group really fucking makes me mad. You are not empowering anyone if you leave behind anyone.