More openness to disabled sports
Sports
Today the day of action for disabled athletes took place in Innsbruck. Functional, active athletes and professionals and their wide range of products and services presented themselves. The aim is to reduce fears of contact and to anchor disabled sports in society.
“More sport than you think and more than just sport” – that is the motto of the day of action for disabled sports that took place in Innsbruck today. The Tyrolean Disabled Sports Association (TBSV) wants to use this day to break down barriers, create awareness and, above all, make the wide range of disabled sports in Tyrol visible.
“It’s about informing society about the possibilities for disabled sports in Tyrol. We have the feeling that a lot of those affected don’t even know which sports they can practice with a disability,” says the President of the Tyrolean Disabled Sports Association, Gerald Daringer.
From handbikes to wheelchair basketball
The Tyrolean Disabled Sports Association has more than a dozen clubs with almost 900 members. The 15 types of sport include disciplines such as hand biking, blind sport shooting and wheelchair basketball. Many could be tried today. There is something special about sailing, explains Georg Wietzorrek from the Association for Tyrolean Sailing Clubs: “We make it all inclusive. But with us, every gender, every age and people with or without disabilities can take part.”
Disabled sports should arrive in society
On Saturday, the focus was also on contact with the pros. The action day is still not a matter of course, says the Olympic bronze medalist in the handbike Alexander Gritsch: “It should be something completely normal that there is someone who is disabled and does sports.” And Jasmin Plank, World Cup winner in para- Climbing adds: “I would have liked that for myself in 2017 too. At that time I was having a hard time finding a sport.”
The importance of disabled sports is greater than ever, but there is still a need to catch up in society, says Plank: “There are fewer barriers than before, but many people still look at me with a half smile when they see me and me say I climb But it’s getting better.”