The Special Olympics World Games, which end on Sunday, should set something in motion when it comes to inclusion. About the question of what the past nine days have changed in people’s minds. And what to expect from a sporting event.
As suddenly as the huge spaceship landed in Berlin last week, it floated away from the capital again. It was a mega event: over a period of nine days, 7,000 athletes from all over the world competed at eight sports venues. They were supported by 20,000 volunteers at an event that was portrayed by an unprecedented media alliance consisting of numerous TV stations, including rbb.
“The media must stay on the ball”
This spaceship was the Special Olympics World Games, a major sporting event with and for mentally handicapped athletes, who should finally be given more attention these days.
What will remain when the spaceship has flown away?
“It is now important that the whole thing does not disappear into nirvana,” says Norma Rettich on the other end of the line. “That the media stay on the ball, that politicians initiate changes so that, for example, a broader range of sports and fitness offers can be provided.”
The 59-year-old from Potsdam trained the German hockey selection at the Special Olympics, including her son Kevin Waskowsky. It was Raditic who, five years ago, together with like-minded people, began to establish something like a hockey club infrastructure for people with mental disabilities in the region, starting with the “Special Hockey Team Berlin-Brandenburg”. Before that, apart from isolated initiatives in schools throughout Berlin-Brandenburg, there was not a single hockey club for people with special needs.
The opening ceremony was a hit
The lack of sports is probably one of the reasons why in Germany only one in ten people with intellectual disabilities is a member of a sports club.
That’s also what the Special Olympics was about: being an advertising platform for inclusive sport, so that even more disabled people are made aware of offers and, on the other hand, sports clubs are made aware of them.
At the opening event, this calculation seemed to work out perfectly. In front of the eyes of 50,000 spectators in the Olympic Stadium and a considerable market share of 14 percent in front of the TV sets, the organizers managed to launch a start ceremony that was as dazzling as it was downright friendly.
Special Olympics World Games 2023 officially opened
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Poignant stories
An alleged incident also proved to be a touching moment there: When a Syrian athlete rushed up to Special Olympics boss Timothy Shriver during a speech to hug him and kiss him on the cheek, he and the securities allowed it – which the world audience further proof of this was that this event was a warm, warming, inclusive gathering of diverse people, unlike most other antiseptic glamor sporting events.
Over the next few days, this special scene was followed by numerous other moving stories from individual athletes, whom sport helps to gain recognition and more participation.
Well-known former professional athletes, high political dignitaries such as Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Olaf Scholz and top politicians from the Berlin Senate emphasized the importance of the games in interviews, speeches and press conferences. Terms such as “inclusion”, “participation” and “learning from one another” were solemnly shot into the sky like colorful firecrackers.
Continued fear of contact
Norma Rettich describes herself as “someone who does things instead of talking”. Accordingly, the trainer now also organizes joint training sessions for her special team with ordinary hockey teams in Brandenburg and Berlin. “I’m just building that up. I find that much more inclusive than anything else,” she says.
She also experienced the atmosphere at the Special Olympics as unique, as “overwhelming”. A contrasting program to the fear of contact that Radish still observes in everyday life when it comes to the issue of disabilities, including on the sidelines of the games: for example, when people on the train vacated their seats for the athletes. Maybe because they actually looked drained after exercise. But probably also, so suspected Rettich, because the train passengers didn’t want to sit next to them. “It’s easy for people with intellectual disabilities to be very emotional, no matter which direction. Many people are afraid of this direct confrontation.”
Whether the running out of sports games could contribute to the fact that such fears of contact are reduced and instead a new implicitness in the encounters is germinating?
What can you expect from a sports event?
From rower to reporter
Sebastian Stuart is a successful rower and lives with an intellectual disability. When his dream of participating in the Special Olympics World Games was shattered, he had an idea. Now he is reporting on the competitions for the sports show. By Anton Fahl more
A little cramped
The event sometimes seemed overloaded with good will, so that something cramped clung to it, which is also part of the truth. At the sporting meetings, the language rule was that it was about “competitions” instead of “competitions” – although most of the spectators should of course have exactly the latter word on the tip of their tongues.
The reason for the linguistic “wadding” was the idea that nobody should leave the field as a loser and that sport is more than competition. As a result, no medal table was published, although such a table can always add additional value to a sporting event.
The good mood in the stands at many sports venues proved that a sports event can actually work without counting medals. In the Hanns-Braun-Stadion, where the track and field athletes competed, the first finisher was celebrated just as much as the last.
The individual results would interest him less, said spectator Guntram Niederste-Hollenberg. The pensioner followed the Special Olympics on television and liked the atmosphere so much that he wanted to experience it live: “I’m here for the feeling.”
What can trigger an event?
Which sporting events had the power to transcend themselves and make a difference in society? Woodstock, the summer fairy tale – and now the Special Olympics?
A chance encounter with Sebastian Stuart on the Ringbahn. For the rower, the dream of participating in the Special Olympics had burst in advance, but the Berliner made it to the event anyway: as a reporter for ARD.
His club career also shows how much German sport has to catch up on the subject of inclusion: Stuart had to search a long time for a rowing club that also supports athletes with disabilities. He “no longer felt welcome” at his original club in the south of Berlin, as he says. He found what he was looking for in Grünau – quite a distance from his home town of Zehlendorf. Based on his own experiences, Stuart hopes that there will be more willingness to be included in sports clubs.
Question to Stuart: What will remain of the Special Olympics in Berlin? His answer sounds more like an order, simple and logical: “Everyone who took part or was involved should spread the idea of inclusion.”
Broadcast: rbb24, 06/25/2023, 8:15 p.m