At the Paralympic Games, the tortuous path of adapted sport

In the traditional ballet of armchairs and carbon blades stand sportsmen, upright and valiant. Without a metal frame, their handicap seems almost invisible. Like their place at the Paralympic Games (August 24 to September 5). Of the approximately 4,400 athletes present in Tokyo, people with intellectual disabilities represent less than 5% of Paralympic athletes and participate in only three disciplines – swimming, table tennis and athletics – of the twenty-two present in Japan.

“If there are more disabled athletes [pratiqué par les handicapés physiques ou sensoriels], it is because they represent more handicaps ”, explains Marc Truffaut, the president of the French Adapted Sport Federation (FFSA) – specific to mental and psychic disabilities.

While the classifications of the categories devoted to physically disabled athletes are multiple, often temporary and reassessed every few years to ensure fairness in the Paralympic movement, the class of “mental disabilities” is unique. She indiscriminately opposes athletes with intellectual disabilities and seems to have frozen in stone since reinstatement “At homeopathic dose” of these athletes at the quadrennial meeting, in London in 2012, as suggested by the National Technical Director (DTN) of the FFSA, Marie-Paule Fernez, on the YouTube channel Sport in France, in July.

A decade of banishment

In fact, the Paralympic experience of mentally handicapped athletes was initially cut short. After a first participation in the Summer Games in 1996 and the Winter Games in 1998, the Sydney Games had been the scene of a deception leading to the ban of adapted sport for more than a decade.

Sacred Paralympic champion in 2000, the Spanish basketball team had played with ten able-bodied players out of twelve. Infiltrated into the Iberian team, journalist Carlos Ribagorda revealed the imposture after the tournament and claimed to have passed no intellectual test. Considering itself incapable of measuring the level of intellectual disability of athletes, the International Paralympic Committee then excluded mentally handicapped athletes. In response, their international federation (INAS-FID, now Virtus) created the Global Games – world games that take place every four years -, the first edition of which was held in parallel with the Athens Games. .

Of the 138 members of the French delegation to the Japanese Games, six will defend the colors of “adapted sport”. A number that may seem low compared to the thousands of FFSA licensees (65,000 in 2019 before Covid-19). It is, however, better than in London (four) and Rio (five).

If the elected officials are so few, it is because the selection criteria have hardened after the scandal of the Sydney Games. With eight to twelve competitors per event, the selection of mentally handicapped athletes at the Paralympic Games is hyperselective. “In athletics, you had to be in the top four at the last world championships or in the top six in the world rankings in 1^er April 2021 “, explains Marc Truffaut.

In addition to having to obtain their selection on sports fields, mentally disabled athletes, whose IQ must be less than 75 and detected before the age of 18, must also carry out a battery of tests to prove their disability and its consequences. effects on sports practice. A panel of psychology experts assesses their daily difficulties, then their “sports intelligence” (reaction time, memory, spatial perception, etc.). The arm cycle of mentally retarded swimmers is, for example, supposed to be lower than that of able-bodied athletes because the handicap of the former often leads to difficulties in coordination and rhythm.

Eight high-level recognized disciplines

These criteria automatically exclude athletes with mental disabilities (subject to a chronic mental illness, such as schizophrenia) for whom it is “Difficult to demonstrate the permanent impact of disability on performance”, concedes Marc Truffaut. However, the boss of French adapted sport, also president of the International Federation of Mentally Deficient Athletes (Virtus), pleads for the creation of new categories at the Games to separate intellectually disabled athletes from intellectually disabled with an overhandicap (suffering from Down’s syndrome in particular ), as is the case at the European and World Championships.

But the process is far from simple. “As soon as you add an adapted sport, you have to remove a discipline from the Paralympic program”, warns Mr. Truffaut. An extension at the expense of others which is explained by the limitation of the number of participants in the Olympic and Paralympic Games (10,000 in all). There is also a financial problem. “To develop research around classification, international federations must release between 150,000 and 200,000 euros for a discipline”, specifies the president of the FFSA.

At the local level, adapted sport has, on the other hand, developed, taking advantage of the spotlight of the Paralympics to enhance its reputation. Since 2009, eight disciplines (athletics, swimming, table tennis, basketball, football, cycling, alpine skiing and Nordic skiing) have been recognized as high level by the Ministry of Sports. The federation has doubled its number of licensees to become the first federation of disabled athletes in France, ahead of that of disabled sports. “We had a leap in licenses after London”, remembers Marc Truffaut. The bronze medal of table tennis player Pascal Pereira-Leal – the first for adapted sport – thus helped to bring out the practice of anonymity.

After the time of recognition and discovery, adapted sport is in the era of reconquest. With, in sight, the Paris 2024 Summer Games for which the FFSA hopes that an event reserved for people with Down’s syndrome will be created. The deputy national technical director within the FFSA, Hervé Dewaele, for his part, sees it as a “Strong sign” for “Show the diversity of people with intellectual disabilities”.