Is a Paralympic medal really necessary? August 26, 21:03

Boccia won the silver medal for the first time at the Rio de Janeiro Paralympics three years ago. However, it was said that the contestants who returned to Japan were saying “Congratulations!… What is Boccia?”.

Para competition that many people have won medals but are not yet known.
Why are the players aiming for medals at the Paralympic Games?

Now that the Tokyo Paralympics are approaching a year later, I would like to think about the meaning of medals aimed at by athletes with disabilities, with hints from the words thrown by Boccia players.
(Sports News Department reporter Yosuke Nakano)

Paralympics where medals are not expected

“22”.
This is the gold medal acquisition goal that Japan raised at the Tokyo Paralympics next year.

This is an extremely high goal because Japan won the gold medal at the Rio de Janeiro tournament.

In recent years, the Paralympic Games have dramatically improved their competitiveness with records comparable to the Olympics. However, Japan cannot keep up with this trend.

Looking at the medal ranking by country, it was 10th, the highest ever (17 gold), and the decline began at the peak of the 2004 Athens tournament. The 2008 Beijing tournament was 17th (5 gold), 2012 London Is 24th (five gold) and the 2016 Rio de Janeiro tournament is 64th (0 gold).

It was the first time since the 1964 Tokyo tournament, the first in the summer tournament, that there was no gold medal.

When you hear this, there are many people who think "A gold medal at the Tokyo Paralympics!"

However, in the awareness survey conducted by the Nippon Foundation in the year following the Rio de Janeiro tournament, only 11% of respondents said that the increase in Japanese medals was expected of the Paralympic Games.

The top was 44% of “Improving understanding of people with disabilities”.

In the first place in Japan, few people expect medals for the Paralympic Games.

“What is Boccia?”

Doesn't expecting a medal mean that even if you win a medal?

The example that is not the case is the Boccia mentioned at the beginning.

The Boccia representative from Japan where the silver medalist had to receive the question “What is Boccia?” As much as the blessing. However, in fact, the fact that it was “heard about the competition” was very meaningful.

After the tournament, the representative players were drawn to lectures and events at companies and schools as medalists. Since the rules of the competition are almost unknown, I explained from scratch and continued to play.

There is only a sport designed for people with severe disabilities such as cerebral palsy, and anyone from children to the elderly can play under the same conditions.

As a result, Boccia became popular in senior citizen clubs and other events after the Rio Games, and became a classic parasports event.
A tournament that can be played regardless of whether there is a disability has also been born and has helped popularize it.

After returning from the Rio Games, the representative players who were disappointed that they didn't know the competition are now proud of their contribution to the spread of the competition.

Japanese representative Ace, Takaki Hirose, was motivated by the popularization of the competition, saying, “I want to win the gold medal in the Tokyo Games and sustain the“ Boccia Boom ””.

A virtuous cycle that has begun to turn from boom to strengthening

At special needs schools where students with disabilities attend, there were a series of children who started boccia with a longing for medalists.

The number of entries at “Boccia Koshien”, the number one special support school in Japan, doubled to 40 schools nationwide after the Rio Games.

Last year's winning school captain, Ami Karashi (17), was one of the first to start a Boccia when he saw the silver medal acquisition in Japan.

Since I was born, I had a disability in both hands and feet, so I only had to watch physical education and I didn't like sports, but my encounter with Boccia changed my life.

He also became a representative of Japan and is enthusiastic about "I want to tell the children that I can play sports" for children with disabilities like me.

Young people who started Boccia after the Rio Games, like Mr. Karashi, became one after another.

Boccia, which used to be around 200 players once, has doubled to 400 after winning the medals, and the representatives who were aging are now rejuvenated.

The competition population increases by the medal acquisition, and the next medalist candidate grows from there.

“The virtuous cycle of dissemination and strengthening has started as a result of the medal acquisition,” said Boccia Japan representative Mitsuaki Murakami, head coach.

Difficulties in spreading “no medals”

On the other hand, in competitions where medals are far away, we are worried that the spread will not proceed as expected.

For example, sitting volleyball where athletes with disabilities sit and play.

The difference in height cannot be covered with jumping power, so physique differences that cannot be filled with overseas forces will be reflected in the results.

In Japan, men and women have never won medals in the past Paralympics. At the Rio Games, I missed even the appearance.

The competition group that raised the sense of crisis visited 40 elementary and junior high schools last year and tried to play in front of about 10,000 people in an attempt to disseminate it as a sport that can be played regardless of disability or age. Is proceeding.

However, according to a public opinion survey in Tokyo, the awareness of sitting volleyball is only 10%. While wheelchair basketball and wheelchair tennis are over 70%, it remains the 18th out of 22 competitions at the Tokyo Paralympics.

The average age of the Japan Women's National Team is 40 years old, with the competition population not increasing.

The 52-year-old captain, Michiyo Nishike, is impatient, saying, “I want to increase the competition population by acquiring medals in order to pass on what I have done to young players.”

“People gather for medals”

Under such circumstances, the long-awaited new strength also appeared.

Mika Hata, an 18-year-old, lost her volleyball that had been in her first year of elementary school because of a disease called osteosarcoma, and turned to sitting volleyball.

After all, until I became ill, I didn't know the existence of the competition, and my father looked up on the internet and reached the sitting volleyball team.

While it is expected as the next generation ace, it is more than one year old from other representative players, and I am looking forward to the participation of young players.

Mr. Hata, who says, “I want to be a younger player because there are no players to succeed when there are no seniors.”

Chairman Yoshihisa Mano of the Japan Para-Volleyball Association, who has been involved in the spread of competition for 23 years and also serves as the manager of the Japan Women's National Team, has continued to face both the difficulty of acquiring medals and the difficulty of promoting the spread without medals. It was.

Mr. Mano said, “I think it was good to continue when a younger player who had a disability, such as Hata, started. There must be many people with disabilities who can play this competition. I want you to start. "

And finally there was the most impressive word.

“I think the value of the Paralympic medals is that people gather there.”

The spread and the ability to change life

Certainly the value of the Paralympic Games is not just medals.

The figure of using the remaining functions to the fullest even if there is a disability, just tells us that it doesn't matter whether there is a disability or not in people's lives.

Parasports has a long history of being part of the welfare of persons with disabilities, so it is also true that there is a strong perception of it different from “all results” sports.

Even so, if the acquisition of medals is the fastest way to disseminate, I think that as much as the Olympics can be as rigorous.

If Boccia's Tangji and Sitting Volleyball's Hata were ignorant of the existence of the competition, there was no current activity.

In the Paralympic Games, there are 22 competitions designed to allow people with disabilities to play. If one or more of the competitions become known by the success of athletes in Tokyo, one day it may change someone's life.

The gentle word “the result is not everything” will be held in your heart until the end of the Tokyo Paralympics, and will fully support your efforts to become a medal.

As one who wishes to spread parasports, I intend to continue the interview with this attitude.

Sports news department reporter Yosuke Nakano

Entered in 2008, Kanazawa Bureau Miyazaki Bureau