CBC Archives

You must sign in to leave a comment on this clip.

Breakthrough for the Paralympics

Broadcast Date: Oct. 22, 1988

1988 is a significant year in Paralympic history. At this year's Summer Games, it became the Paralympic practice to always hold the event in the same city as the Olympics.
In this radio clip, The Inside Track talks to Canadian gold medal winner Jamie Bone during the 1988 Games in Seoul. Bone, a wheelchair sprinter, is extremely impressed with the enthusiasm of the Korean fans. "They seem to really enjoy the events and it's fantastic," he says.

Breakthrough for the Paralympics

• The 1988 Seoul Games were pivotal to Paralympic history for several reasons. Aside from beginning the tradition that the Olympics and Paralympics would be held in the same city (with Paralympics immediately following the Olympics), this was also the first time the Olympic organizing committee worked closely with the Paralympic organizing committee.

• Canada's Dr. Robert Steadward, former president of the International Paralympic Committee and co-author of Paralympics: Where Heroes Come, dubbed the Seoul Paralympics "The Sophisticated Games." From transportation and security, to wheelchair accessibility at the venues and accommodations, these Games were considered remarkably well organized compared to past Games.

• To avoid the problem of half-empty stadiums that had plagued some earlier games, Seoul's Paralympic organizing committee gave free tickets to various community groups. Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, church groups, college groups and amateur sporting groups filled the stands. And Korean school children were organized into cheering groups, with each group cheering for a different country.

• A higher standard of competition was also established in 1988. "That's when we moved from a medical model to a sport model," said Dr. Steadward in a 2003 CBC report.
• The Seoul organizing committee weeded out a number of the events involving severely disabled athletes — typically events with fewer than three athletes registered. This last-minute decision disappointed some competing countries. But according to Steadward, it was "a symptom of the change these games represented: the Paralympic athlete must be the elite athlete."

• Because of the changes in 1988, Steadward sees these Games as the beginning of the "modern" Paralympics. In a 2001 Globe and Mail article, he said: "The modern Olympics traces its origins back to 1896; well, I think the modern Paralympics started in 1988 because that's when we started to have a solid relationship with the International Olympic Committee and they took more of an interest in hosting the Paralympics. And for the first time our athletes started to be treated like athletes rather than patients."

• There were 17 events on the program in 1988: lawn bowling, power lifting, archery, athletics (track and field), basketball, cycling, fencing, football, goalball, Judo, shooting, snooker, swimming, volleyball, table tennis, wheelchair tennis (a demonstration sport) and boccia. Each of these sports had its own classifications in terms of disability type and degree.

• The number of disability categories had grown to five by 1988: spinal cord injuries, amputees, visually impaired, cerebral palsy and les autres, defined as "all motor disabilities except amputees, medullar lesions and cerebral palsy." Such motor disabilities could include muscular dystrophy, severe cases of multiple sclerosis, or paralysis of arms or legs.

• The following year, 1989, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) was formed. This brought together six international organizations representing disabled sport, including the International Blind Sports Association, the Cerebral Palsy International Sport and Recreation Association, and the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation. Canada's Dr. Robert Steadward became the founding president. He was later often referred to as "the Juan Antonio Samaranch of the Paralympics."

• In 2001, the IPC signed a historic cooperation agreement with the IOC. This agreement cemented the relationship between the two committees. Among other things, it officially stipulated that the Paralympics would always follow the Olympics, and that the two events would take place in the same city using the same venues. Although this had been the practice since the 1988 Games in Seoul, the 2001 agreement made it official.

Breakthrough for the Paralympics

Medium: Radio

Program: The Inside Track

Broadcast Date: Oct. 22, 1988

Guest(s): Jamie Bone

Host: Mark Lee

Duration: 2:38

Last updated:
May 29, 2009