On October 14, 2022, during the signing of the Paris2024 program contract, the President of the Portuguese Paralympic Committee (CPP), José Manuel Lourenço, shocked some attendees by admitting that there were difficulties in attracting new talent, reducing the presence was in danger. in Los Angeles2028. After all, he had just received 9.2 million euros, ‘exactly’ what he had asked the government for, in preparation for the next Paralympic Games (JP), where he will have a delegation of 25 athletes at best. Worse, only the 13 athletes from Seoul 1988.
“The worst thing we can do is celebrate a good time by burying our heads in the sand and pretending there are no problems. It would have been nicer and more politically correct to thank the nine million and so on and that’s all, but that would be an irresponsible attitude and I am not, at least intentionally, that. We must look at the reality and the reality is that we have 44 athletes in the Paris2024 program and participation in Los Angeles2028 is in danger,” he assured DN, recalling that the current Program Contract corrects a situation of financial inequality that has existed for decades continued.
The CPP chairman refuses any dose of alarmism to raise awareness, saying he will be “satisfied if I am wrong” but “it is clear that Portugal is not following international developments”. The difficulty of finding new talent in a universe of around 5,000 federated athletes “is as real as it is frustrating”, and José Manuel Lourenço only dares to “speculate” about the reasons for this, which range from weak recruitment to prejudice within the family.
For the Paris 2024 Games (August 28 to September 8), Portugal will receive four quotas for athletics, two for canoeing, two for swimming and one for cycling, for a total of nine. And the prediction is that an additional 16 places will be gained, out of a total of 25 athletes, eight fewer than in Tokyo2020 (33).
And the trend is that it is getting worse. The average age in the last JP was almost 36 yearsTherefore, it is urgent to accelerate the prospecting and detection of new talent. In paracycling, Carolina Duarte will be 34 years old and Luís Costa 42. And in paracanoeing, Norberto Mourão will be 43 and Alex Santos 38. “Is it possible to think about that for Los Angeles? Human biology says no,” says the leader, referring to the figures of the Esperanças Paralímpicas de Portugal project, which has only seven athletes, four men and three women.
“Are there no blind people anymore?”
The decrease in the number of athletes took place after this historic participation in Sydney2000 – Portugal took 52 athletes and brought 15 medals (6 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze) – and this is reflected in the results: “Just looking at the podium places may be limiting, but Portugal has not won a gold medal since Beijing 2008 medal won more [João Paulo Fernandes]despite good results at the World Cup.”
Boccia, together with athletics, is the sport with the most athletes in the Paralympic Program (10). He always achieved excellent results, but he left Tokyo without a podium, which happened for the first time. “Without wanting to establish a cause-and-effect relationship, it is clear that we have allowed many athletes to continue in the sport for years and that no calculated and smooth innovation has taken place. We have good young people, very young, but perhaps we will have to wait to grow sportingly,” he admitted José Manuel Lourenço in a sense my mistake institutionally, he has led the CPP since 2017.
Beatriz Monteiro (17) and Diogo Daniel (18) from badminton are two examples of this youth, but internally they compete almost alone and if they stop it is logical that the sport will no longer have the current success.
The lack of internal competition is also a reason for the lack of results and for sports to disappear at the same speed with which they appear. For example, in Beijing 2008, sailing was Paralympic and Portugal had only one top athlete, Bento Amaral, who retired from competing. And the modality disappeared…
‘Stranger’, according to the President of the Paralympic Committee, moves from a model in which athletes almost paid to participate in sport, to this other reality, namely ‘the difficulty of attracting athletes, at a time when financial conditions have never been been’. “Athletics went from ten blind people who participated at a high level, in the marathon, speed, middle distance and long distance, to two athletes, the twins from Braga, Márcia and Sara Araújo. This is what we are talking about. Is it because there are not blind people? It was good… There must be a reason why they don’t look for sports as an answer to their lives,” he lamented.
And if school sports are failing across the board, according to the CPP leader, there are also federations that have not yet included sports for people with disabilities in their sports culture. Without magical solutions to reverse the scenario, he defends the return of promotional actions in places where it is possible for people with disabilities to exist. This is what the Portuguese Sports Federation for People with Disabilities did, which supervised adapted sport until 2008, with the aim of creating a portfolio of modalities. A model that the CPP replicated on Paralympic Day in October, where potential athletes could try out 19 sports.
Health, family and prejudice
Asking questions to find answers that help establish new values for adapted sport led to an “alarming conclusion”, according to Luís Figueiredo, head of the Paris2024 Mission: “There is prejudice within the family and denial of disability. I was attending a race and spoke to a young woman, who was competing in a free event but had a visible disability, to invite her to join to join the Paralympic Movement. and the answer was, “No, I’m not disabled.”
The vast majority of Paralympic athletes have daily caregivers, they need help with hygiene and mobility issues and this applies not only in their daily lives but also in the way they get to the training venue and competition venue. The fear of causing pain to those who cannot complain causes families to say no to sports integration. To provide some security for family members and better conditions for athletes, the CPP has established a medical support office, with a multidisciplinary team including a doctor, physiotherapists and a psychologist.
But even if Portugal has fewer and fewer people with disabilities, it is important that those who do can see playing sports as an option, says Luís Figueiredo: “If the person has a medical indication not to play sports, okay, but a person with a disability, it’s just that, a person with a disability, not a sick person. It has been scientifically proven that a person with a disability who participates in sports has a better quality of life and, even in a family context, the happiness index increases.”
Looking at the Paralympic Games, which will take place between August 28 and September 8, 2024 in Paris, parity is an additional issue. “Improving the poor performance in Tokyo 2020 is not an objective, it is almost an obligation in Paris 2024,” the head of mission warned, as he welcomed the recent government move to equalize the value of medals. Paralympic or Olympic gold is worth 50,000 euros, silver 30,000 euros and bronze 20,000 euros. And an Olympic or Paralympic record is rewarded with a bonus of 15 thousand euros (the same value as a world record).
Since Portugal’s first participation in the 1972 Paralympic Games, 312 athletes have represented the country in 15 sports and won 94 medals: 25 gold, 30 silver and 39 bronze. Lenin Cunha
Source: DN
