Impressions from Australia - The Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games, cont'd.

Attendance
      The Paralympic Games are coming of age in terms of crowd appeal, topping 1.1 million in Sydney-equivalent to one in every nineteen Australians attending the Games. Margie McDonald, Media Relations Manager for the Sydney Paralympic Organizing Committee (SPOC), shared some statistics about ticket sales at the Sydney Paralympic Games in an interview. According to McDonald, the Games in Barcelona, Spain, in 1992 marked the first time tickets were sold to the Paralympics. Only tickets to the Opening and Closing Ceremonies were sold, with 80,000 people attending each of the two ceremonies for total sales of 160,000 tickets. The tickets to the actual athletic events were given away. Spectators who attended loved the sports, so they came back, resulting in a total attendance of one million spectators.
      At the Atlanta Paralympic Games in 1996 tickets were sold for the first time to sporting events, as well as the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Spectators purchased tickets that provided entrance to a specific sporting event, paralleling the Olympics model. A total of 500,000 tickets were sold during the Atlanta Paralympic Games, with swimming, athletics (track and field), and basketball being the most heavily attended events. The wheelchair basketball game in which Australia defeated the USA for the gold medal was a sell out.
      For the Sydney Paralympics, the SPOC brought ticket selling to the next level. SPOC anticipated that in 2000, the Paralympics would be more established and poised to enjoy great popularity in a country where love of sport is legendary. So SPOC chose a method of ticket sales to maximize the number of spectators while providing these spectators with the opportunity to view as many Paralympic sports as they wished. The SPOC sold reserved seats to the ever-popular semi-final and final competitions, but sold day passes for all other events. Day passes were inexpensively priced at $7.50 U.S. for general admission and $4.00 U.S. for seniors and students. Included in the ticket price was train fare from any part of Sydney's rail system to the Olympic Park in Homebush Bay. The included fare produced an absence of long ticket lines at train stations, helping the entire transportation system to operate flawlessly.
     The SPOC strategy for ticket sales appeared to work beautifully for both organizers and athletes. Total attendance reached 1,108,000 at the Sydney Paralympics. Wednesday through Friday, October 25-27, attendance surpassed 100,000 per day. On these days there were repeated announcements, "The following venues are currently at full capacity-swimming, tennis, basketball, volleyball, powerlifting" Finally, the highly trained Paralympic athletes had opportunities to compete in front of capacity crowds.
     Who were these 1.1 million people who came to see the Paralympics? There were families and friends who traveled from around the world to cheer on their country's athletes in Sydney. Yet, the vast majority of spectators were Australian (a country of nearly 19 million) who had no personal connection with the Paralympic Games or athletes with disabilities. Many spectators were interviewed as to why they had come. Many came because they love sports of all kinds and wanted to see Paralympic sports. Others came to experience sport in the same venues as the Olympics, but at much more affordable prices. Still others came to cheer on the Australian Paralympic athletes. For many, attending the Paralympics was an expression of national pride, as explained by one woman from a country town two hours from Sydney. She said it had been her observation that when Australians set their minds to do something that is really important to them, they seldom muck it up. She had bought her ticket to the Opening Ceremony many months earlier, determined to do her part to assure a sell-out crowd for these Paralympic events. She declared, "I am here to make sure this seat is filled. And I am glad I did. This is great!"
      Most notable were the many thousand school children in attendance each weekday of the Games. Nearly 360,000 people traveled to the Games in organized school and other groups. School vacations had been scheduled to coincide with the Olympics, so the whole country would have the opportunity to observe the sports. By October the schools were back in session, but the Paralympic tickets were reasonably priced, so many schools arranged school trips, often over two nights, to enable the children to see the Olympic site firsthand AND cheer the Australian Paralympic athletes. As a result of their experiences attending the Paralympic Games, Australian school children are now well aware of the sport possibilities of their classmates with disabilities. According to an IPC press release, SPOC President Dr. John Grant noted, "The next generation now understands the Games, the sports, and the disabilities. Adults can still be uncomfortable with peoples' disabilities, but children are wonderful! Kids are going up to athletes and not saying, 'what's wrong with you?' They ask, 'what sport do you play?' "
      Imagine these Aussie school children challenging physical education teachers who, out of ignorance, may relegate a student with a disability to keeping score or watching on the sidelines. Perhaps these students will now ask, "Why can't my classmate play? I saw athletes with the same disability competing at the Paralympics."

Medal Standings

Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
Australia	63	39	47	149
Great Britain	41	43	47	131
Spain	39	30	38	107
Canada	38	33	25	96
United States	36	39	34	109

Volunteers
      To successfully pull off an event of such magnitude depends greatly on contributions of volunteers. In this case, 15,000 Australians volunteered, with most using vacation days and paying their own expenses to be part of the experience. Many volunteered for the Olympics and continued on for the Paralympics. To a person, volunteers were unbelievably friendly, enthusiastic, and well prepared to be helpful in all aspects of the Paralympic Games. It became a real status symbol within Australia to be a volunteer, due to the enormous respect these individuals earned through the high quality of their service. Volunteers also added good humor, such as the older woman volunteer who, during an extended pause in play at the USA vs Great Britain men's goalball game, spontaneously led the crowd in a hilarious line dance spoof. Australians seemed eager to continue their exuberant celebration begun during the Olympics throughout the entire Paralympic Games.

Flawless Organization
      The organization of the Sydney Paralympic Games appeared flawless, to the credit of Lois Appleby, SPOC Chief Executive and her staff. Close cooperation of the Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committees, together with public financial backing, meant many of the venue managers for the Paralympics had the same roles during the Olympics. Their experience was key to the smooth manner in which the Games were conducted. The thorough advance organization, combined with the calm Australian attitude, created an atmosphere that reflected a favorite Aussie expression - No worries, mate.

USA Wheelchair Rugby Team Brings Home the Gold
Left, Troy McGuirk #10(USA) looks for an open teammate. Center, USA defeats Switzerland on the road to the gold medal. Right, USA support staff quickly changes a wheel during the game.

WeMedia Inc. Broadcasts
      A major marker that the Paralympic Games are coming of age was the media coverage. For the first time, people with Internet access around the world could view Paralympic events live on the WeMedia web site. WeMedia, Inc. is the New York-based magazine and web content company co-founded by Carey Fields, CEO, in December, 1999. Its web site, www.wemedia.com, and magazine are designed as resources for people with disabilities, their families, and friends. According to an IPC press release, three hundred thirty employees provided live coverage of everything from the Opening Ceremony through the extinguishing of the Paralympic flame in Sydney. This was just the beginning of the collaboration between WeMedia and the Paralympics. On October 27, 2000, prior to the conclusion of the Paralympic Games, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) signed a multi-million dollar deal with WeMedia. WeMedia now holds the six-year worldwide television broadcast and Internet Webcast rights to the next three Paralympic Games. "The IPC is thrilled to be partners with WeMedia, a company which has brought live Internet coverage of the Paralympic Games to the world for the first time," said Dr. Robert Steadward, President of the IPC. "They have employed the most sophisticated technology, including live captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing, in order to make these Games accessible to all people. I anticipate even greater success in Salt Lake City, Athens, and Turin," he continued.
      The Australian Paralympic Games' media coverage far exceeded any previous host country's Paralympic coverage. But the Australian coverage fell short of domestic viewer demand. From the outset, Lois Appleby and the SPOC sought to create an interest in the Paralympics among Australians. In a 1996 interview with Lois Appleby, she explained, "We bought one hour of nightly coverage during the Atlanta Paralympics so Australians would become aware of the Paralympics and be primed to support it when we host it here in Sydney." Australians were primed to see the Paralympic Games when they came to Sydney, and became upset that the coverage was not more extensive. In fact, many Australians who had no particular connection to the Paralympics or disabilities expressed frustration that television coverage was not more extensive. An hour of coverage was broadcast each night around 6:00 p.m. with the nightly news, then one hour of highlights each evening at 11:00 p.m. This was not enough for sport-loving Australians! The host network created additional broadcast times as the Games progressed. Live coverage was extended from 60 to 90 minutes of prime time between 5:30 and 7:00 p.m. nightly. The decision was also made to break into programs to broadcast gold medal events, particularly those featuring Australians, when they fell outside the 90-minute live coverage. Telstra, the Australian telecommunications corporation, made a last-minute decision to tape the wheelchair rugby final between the USA and Australia for rebroadcast. Graeme Bradley, Senior Venue Manager for the Telstra Olympic and Paralympic Media Operations, was moved by the enthusiasm of the Telstra media crew for the Games. He speculated, "If I were to ask the crew to work an extra day during the Olympics, the first question might be 'What is the pay?' " But when Bradley came to the Telstra crew only four days before the Wheelchair Rugby Finals and asked everyone to work the extra day, he was touched by their response. "Everyone said, 'Sure, I'd do it even if you didn't pay me. These Games are great! People need to see what these athletes are doing.' "
     In a 1996 interview Appleby reviewed lessons she had learned while observing the Atlanta Olympics. She saw frustrated reporters, hampered in doing their work because of difficulties with transportation and facilities, writing reports critical of the Atlanta Olympic organization. Appleby stressed, "You have to take care of the media." True to her word, the care of the media in Sydney was excellent. Over 3,000 media passes were issued for the Sydney Paralympics. The same Main Media Center was used for the Paralympics as the Olympics. People in charge of hosting the media for the Olympics were also hosts for the Paralympics; so the Olympics did, indeed, serve as a great dress rehearsal for the Paralympics!
      Standards for coverage in Sydney were much more professional than in the past, with this trend expected to continue. At the close of the Sydney Games the IPC forewarned the media that with so many media personnel now seeking to cover the Paralympics, professional guidelines and application timelines will be strictly enforced at the Salt Lake Games in 2002.

USA men's goalball team in action. The USA men finished 11th,
while the USA women's hopes of a medal were dashed in a 2-1 loss to Great Britain.

Expanded Drug Screening - article cont'd
     

Home