Active Ableist Abuse
The Hard Money of Olympics Crushed a Paralympic Dream
During the Olympics this year so much about mental health was talked about and discussed. This year’s theme and ads show an excessive amount of mental health and physically challenged athletes. Simone Biles, Michael Phelps, talking about overcoming mental adversity, watching them come out. It’s nice real-world message.
Even overachievement had its problems and super world champions can face real world depression.
But the curse of the Central Olympic Committees or OCs (the octopus International OC and its tentacle branches like the US AOC) has only one goal: Profit. Once you put it that way, you start seeing over the many barriers into the IOC heart, you will see a rotten hatred by the Swiss masters and its tentacle OCs of mental and physical health that is not perfection.
I’m not a big sports fan like my oldest brother but have always loved the Olympics. You get to see all the sports hand out world championship medals in two weeks. During the excessive breaks, many ads showed handicap athletes overcoming the odds because of family support and love. What’s better than true commitment of family through extreme hardships lasting years.
But, then an unscripted fact that isn’t touted finds its way out, smacking down this created narrative and pushed theme. Suddenly I see behind the veil, the false front.
During the endless ads, I kicked back on the tablet and caught the YouTube clip which is a must watch. The blind and deaf swimmer Becca Meyers who is bowing out of the Paralympics because the Committee won’t allow her to have a chaperone to help her. Her chaperone is her own mother.
Covid restrictions have restrained assistance to athletes like her. In the clip, we learn the Olympic committee is only allowing one assistant for every 33 disabled athletes. Where’s all the carefully crafted sympathy for mental health and Paralympians in that policy?
Now while I’m certain the female swimmer shown with two amputated legs in the Toyota advertisement is a superior athlete and more capable in many ways, navigating her world probably does have a couple extra stressors. But is Toyota ‘disablist-washing’ their brand? Is that what NBC is doing by showing how Phelps could have possible be suffering from a depression of sorts, a tortured soul under a pile of gold?
In the middle of a pandemic that has delayed Olympic dreams and forced unbearable stress on everyone, it only seems reasonable to allow one assistant per athlete, especially a family member. Especially a mother helping her blind and deaf daughter navigate airports and a foreign country. What the hell is the U.S. Olympic Committee thinking?
Well, as it turns out, we know. They issued the blandest transparent PR statement that said something like “We support and respect all our athletes and do our best.” Such transparent nonsense outraged the YouTube viewers commenting on the video clip and seeing straight through it. We all saw straight through this stars and striped OC PR as callous and un-empathic to the plight of these athletes.
The commentors and audience universally hailed Becca as brave for speaking up — a swimmer who already won a gold in the last Paralympics. She practiced and went to swim meets most every day as a full-time job because she found a sponsorship. I expected to find a Go Fund me link somewhere in the video description or comment section as though this were a promotional clip to get people to chip in for a lawyer to sue the Olympic Committee for destroying her livelihood with their cruel and vapid PR, their rancid lack of empathy, and their despicable policy.
As I said, this Committee isn’t about the athletes, they are about the money!
Who leads that organization with its heart in the Swiss Alps? Although one source shows the IOC them earning 8 billion dollars in during the 2009–2012 Olympics season. (Albeit a murky source I’ve seen others.) However, since the OCs are all non-profit, the IOC can duck the 20 percent tax and distribute money carefree to executives in the form of salaries and ‘bonuses.’
The US OC fairs not better. Salaries are listed, without bonuses, as in the hundreds of thousands. Not exorbitant, but there are many, over 125 for 800 athletes normally, and that is all before perks and pre-bonuses. Even a conservative city paper like the Salt lake Tribune describes the USOC officials as “feeding on filet mignon while ignoring athletes who are abused and on food stamps.”
One quoted no-paid athlete who confronted the OC, Ben Barger, is quoted as saying, “Athletes are starving and hungry, and this is their dream. They’ll be willing to do anything to get there, including take any amount of abuse.”
Who issued that standby and made that horrible decision a U.S. Senator spoke out about their cruelty in a Congressional session? US New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan, who has a disable child, spoke out about the outrage. She demanded immediate action. Then news blackout on the issue.
I discovered when I wrote my own outraged comments immediately after I was deeply offended. Then I read the view comments. It turns out everyone was angry, seething. Finally, national unity was achieved in a comments section.
I felt real internet anger for the first time: I wanted these shadowy PR figures doxed and outed.
I didn’t ask for that in further comments and restrained myself. But even weeks, as Paralympic Games of 2021 begin in late August, I’m still reeling. I’ve changed my mind. They should be sued. There is a U.S. law, The Americans with Disabilities Act. She should sue them all the way to the Supreme Court. They should be held accountable and fired, forced to apologize. Internet sparked outrage lives on.
Had the Olympic Committee-ians learned nothing about human empathy let alone public relations after the last major U.S. Olympic scandal? You might know the one where over 330 most underage girls were abused, and their pleas and complaints went buried for decades? Yes, it was the USA Gymnastics subcommittee-ians under the USOC, but all the same. Mr. Nassar went to jail only after everyone did nothing. I can’t help but think a grey-haired white man is in charge of all these committees.
I respect the athletes and still watched until the Olympics until the end. It is about them, all the underdog stories, like the US shot put winner with green and purple hair who spoke about how she tried to kill herself during the post event briefing and then had numerous personal issues. Then two days after that her mother died. Maybe the super-star athletes will help with this case.
Up until the point of watching the interview with blind and deaf swimmer who announce she couldn’t go, all about carefully constructed goodwill. The officials and organizers try to keep up the image of the sport for the sake of the sponsors it seems more than the athletes. Their well-constructed Potemkin village suddenly shattered by one blind deaf swimmer. Not overnight, but from years of sweltering outrages they deflect and ignore. They are protected from being held accountable.
On, NBC, the announcer reminded everyone at the close of the events that with this Olympics was a little different: it’s not just about how they got here, not just getting here, a reference to mental health and personal adversity. But it is also about not getting there. A fact NBC, with all its buying power and voice, doesn’t bother to mention. Maybe they are blind and deaf to their own message.
If you find the Go Fund me page, please let me know in the comments. Or maybe my internet outrage will create for me.
