Since our last newsletter, the Winter Olympics finished after 16 days of activities watched around the world. Fort Wayne was dotted with electronic billboards showing up to the minute medal standings. We watched USA finish in the top three with 12 gold medals of their 33 total. We watched both men and women’s USA hockey teams take home gold as well as Alysa Liu in figure skating. Lindsey Vonn went home with a different metal follow a difficult to watch fall. Viewership for the games averaged 23.5 million viewers, almost doubling the number who watched four years ago.
As you are reading this, the Winter Paralympics just finished. It was not telecast on all NBC prime platforms but still saw higher viewership (as of March 11th) than four years ago, but with less than half of the audience of the Olympics. Team USA finished with 13 gold medals and 24 overall.
Granted, awarded were just 79 medals across 6 core sports as compared to The Olympics 116 covering 8 sports, but I would argue, for those who watched, that the more impressive athletes were the ones who may still be on their journey back home as you are reading this newsletter.
The Winter Paralympics began in 1976 and now host 665 athletes in 15 disciplines including athletes who use wheelchairs, adaptive seated skis, sleds instead of skates, perhaps only one pole, and even guides to aid navigation down those death-defying slopes.
We see Olympic athletes in TV ads, on cereal boxes and promoting athletic equipment. The stories of the Paralympic athletes deserve similar exposure.
Meet paralympic snowboarder Keith Gabel. He describes the day that changed his life and what means more to him than medals.
Do you trust your brother enough to follow him downhill on the super-G or slalom, you having a visual impairment? 16-year-old Paralympian, Meg Gustafson did just that at speeds in excess of 60km/h!
The most decorated US Paralympic athlete who competed in both winter and summer Paralympics (12 gold 7 silver and 3 bronze) is Oksana Masters. She was born in Ukraine, and has significant physical defects of her hands and legs attributed to Chernobyl radiation.
Whether your reason for watching the Olympics is love of sports, watching great competitions, inspiration to get up off the couch (interest in curling increases after the winter Olympics) or patriotism, I hope that you brought that same curiosity to the Winter Paralympics. They deserve the same spotlight and viewership. Their stories of achieving long sought after goals are every bit as inspiring as that of their able-bodied Olympian counterparts.
An athlete is an athlete. Whether Olympic, Paralympic or Special Olympic, each competitor has set goals, put in their training hours, traveled the distance and soaked up the cheers from family and friends as they entered the stadium. They all have that rapid heartbeat that proves they gave their best in crossing the finish line or seeing the game clock run out. For you to watch their athletic ability, to see the commitment to the sport and joy with competition should raise your heart rate as well.
Stay tuned: 2034 Winter Paralympics (and Olympics) are in Utah.
