Should Vancouverites Actually Care About the Paralympics?
- Posted by Kat Braybrooke
- Filed in City
- March 15, 2010
I didn't even know the Paralympics existed until this winter -- and sadly, I think I'm not alone in that realization. It's fascinating that while the Paralympics are literally the second-largest international sports event next to the Olympics, the vast majority of us are completely unaware of their existence -- or, at the most, vaguely ambivalent. Those who are ambivalent are many of the same people who donned full-body Canada gear for the past few weeks, screamed for our country at bars every night, and came out into the streets en masse after the hockey game in an impromptu display of unbridled Canadian pride and nationalism. Somehow, I doubt those people will come out in such awe-inspiring numbers when the Paralympics come to a close -- especially given the sadly lukewarm turnout for the torch ceremony this past week (Twitter updates stated that "it looked like the only people in attendance were family members and the occasional confused bystander.") The streets are back to being a sea of black coats without much representation of the Canada gear everyone was wearing a few weeks ago. Why the lack of support? Is one type of athlete more worthy of our attention than another? A friend told me that Canadians "just don't really care about disabled athletes in the same way as the superhuman ones." I beg to differ. My hypothesis is that a great deal of our Olympics-related nationalism (or, in the Paralympics' case, lack thereof) is directly related to the amount of media and corporate attention focused on the whole Games themselves.
Now, I don't want to turn the mainstream media into the sacrificial lamb here. While CTV still refuses, despite protests, to broadcast the Paralympics closing ceremonies live (ironic given their unabashed saturation of every possible airwave, billboard and commercial spot during last month's Olympics), I will give them credit for providing the largest amount of coverage ever given to the Paralympics by Canada. However, I really think we can do better -- and I also think that if the mainstream media gave Paralympic athletes more of a chance to share their (pretty amazing) stories, Canadians would readily give them the support they deserve. Is this a naive assumption? Let's look at some of the details.








One of the things I love about living in a city is the fact that, right when you are about to resign yourself to a general feeling of apathy because you think you've explored every nook and cranny to be explored, you inevitably stumble upon a neighbourhood you never even realized existed.
There's something about haphazard street words and sign-defacing that really fascinates me. I feel like it reveals more about a city's character than its official signage, advertisements and well-cleaned parks. In Vancouver's case, these written street dialogues reveal a side of the city's residents that's cheeky, a bit angry, and pretty amusing.
I have to say, it's weird to have everything back to normal in Vancouver. Walking to work downtown this morning, I was amazed at the feeling of unnatural stillness in the (dirty, garbage and confetti-filled) streets. I realized that I had gotten used to the chaos, the foreign tourists, and the excessive randomness that permeated downtown life for the past two weeks. 


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