From the Institutionalisation of ‘All Disabilities’ to Comprehensive Sports Integration: France Joining the Paralympic Movement (1954–2012)

Abstract

International audienceThis article presents the institutional implications and ideologies in the organisation of a Sports Movement for the disabled, whether a physical or sensory handicap, and focusing particular attention on its development in France, linked with international structures. The emergence and development in France of sports organisations for the disabled is based on a different model from that introduced in England by Guttmann through the Stoke Mandeville Games. From the 1960s, both trends, one supported by physicians and the other by individuals concerned with disabilities, structured the International Movement as a contest of negotiations and competition. The objective of rehabilitating paraplegics put in place at Stoke Mandeville gradually gave way to a sport rational and the integration of all types of disability within the Movement. The desire to unite in a single organisation was the driving force of the Movement in its search for dual recognition, on the one hand, as the representative of all physical and sensory deficiencies and, on the other, by the able-bodied sports councils and, in particular, the International Olympic Committee. However, this raised a number of issues inherent to any deficiency when taking into account its specific peculiarities

Deaflympic: A Historical Perspective Since 1871 in Relation to Turkey and the World: Traditional Review

“…11 Bunun yanında sağırlar için düzenlenmiş bir dizi organize spor olayı ve faaliyetinin ardından, 1924 yılında düzenlenen ilk Dünya Sağırlar Yarışlarının 1930 tarihli İngiliz Sağır Sporları Konseyinden önce geldiğini söylemek gerekir. 14,15 İngiliz Sağır Sporları Konseyi esas olarak, sağır kişilere yönelik bölgesel ve millî rekabetçi spor yarışmaları düzenlemek için kurulmuş ve o zamandan beri sağır kişiler için kulüpler arası spor yarışmalarını geliştirmeye ve engelli sporu dünyasında sağır sporlarını tanıtmaya devam etmiştir. Engelli sporunun gelişimine, Alman vatandaşı ve aynı zamanda Yahudi olan Ludwig Guttmann isimli nörolog öncülük etmiştir.…”

“…İlk olarak CISS ismini alan birlik, sonraları Sağırlara Yönelik Uluslararası Spor Komitesi [The International Committee of Sports for the Deaf (ICSD)] olarak tanınmaya başlamıştır. 15,18 CISS başta genel olarak ve özellikle dünyadaki sağırlar arasında sporda beden eğitimi ve uygulamalarının geliştirilmesi ve kontrolü, sağırlar için spor uygulamaları gerçekleştiren ülkeler arasındaki ilişkilerin geliştirilmesi ve bu etkinin, bu konudan habersiz olan ülkelerde bu sporların uygulanması için başlatılması ve yön gösterilmesi yönünde kullanılması şeklinde üç amaç belirlemiştir. Sağırlar için dünya çapındaki yarışmaların, şampiyonaların ve bölgesel şampiyonaların düzenli bir biçimde gerçekleştirilmesinin denetimi ve sağırlara yönelik sporlar konusundaki yetkili tek makamı CISS'dir.…”

Inclusion through Sport: A Critical View on Paralympic Legacy from a Historical Perspective

“…The history of the institutionalization of the Paralympic movement is marked by the diverging outlooks of the people involved in its development on both national and international levels (Ruffié, Ferez, & Lantz, 2014). The sport activities in the years 1940 to 1960 as a means of re-education for those with physical impairments (Anderson, 2003), were progressively structured into a competitive practice (Legg & Steadward, 2011).…”

“…In 1964, for the second edition of the Olympic Games for the Physically Disabled, which took place in Tokyo, the World Veteran Foundation decided to play an active role. It was a way for them to provide support for those wounded during war and to consolidate their implication within sports for the physically disabled, initiated several years earlier through their help in organizing the Stoke Mandeville Games (Ruffié et al, 2014). During the Tokyo Games, the International Working Group on Sports for the Disabled became the International Sport Organization for the Disabled, a federation that represented amputees, visually impaired people, those with cerebral palsy, as well as the 'others' category.…”

From Sport as an Instrument in Rehabilitation to the Adoption of Competitive Sport: Genesis of a Delegatee Sports Federation in France for Those with Physical Disabilities (1954–1972)

“…This position kindled tensions regarding the direction that sport for the disabled should take. Guttmann continued to defend the idea of sport solely for those with a motor disability 86 .…”