A message from our founder... Paralympics are August 8/28-9/8! Give it a read, get educated and go get your popcorn! Let's go Team USA!
Attention world!!! The Paralympic Games are coming 8/28-9/8 to Paris, France! You won't want to miss a minute of action. In the US, it's all on Peacock. So please watch!!! Fall in love. Become a fan. Go down the rat hole. Follow our athletes. We need you. Better yet. Tell everyone in your community, church, workplace, neighborhood, social following, etc. to watch the Paralympics too! Yell to the rooftops! We have some amazing athletes (like of course, my son Ezra Frech), incredible stories, crazy cool sports (like blind soccer, blade running, etc). Just for the record. The Paralympics are not the Olympics. They are not the Para-Olympics. They are not a "sub-set" of the Olympics. And they are definitely not the Special Olympics (an amazing inclusion program for 2% of the population with a cognitive disability like Downs Syndrome). They are a totally separate event for elite athletes, who had to qualify, who have physical disabilities or visual impairments (15% of the worlds population). Remember, this is elite. The origin of the word “Paralympics” is that they are to be run parallel to the olympics. This word has nothing to do with paraplegia or paralysis. The Paralympics were started after WWII in England and have a different international committee that oversees the Games (International Olympic Committee vs International Paralympic Committee). Since 1988 they joined forces with the Olympic Movement to select a host city. Prior to that the Paralymlics were in different cities altogether. Different athletes. Some different sports (Goalball, Boccia). However, most of our 22 summer Paralympic sports are the same but have been adapted for people with physical disabilities (i.e. wheelchair tennis, blind soccer, blade running). The Olympics and Paralympics DO share host cities (Paris) and DO share organizing committees (Paris 2024, LA 2028, and so on). And they DO share the village (Olympic Village turns into Paralympic Village), and venues (Bercy Arena where Team USA won our bball medals, will be the site of our wheelchair Bbal teams winning gold medals!). So that's it. We need you. We need fans. We can change how the world sees disability in one fell swoop - The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games!!! And if we don’t quite get our goal this year, we have Milan 2026 and LA28 Olympic & Paralympic Games ! Lastly, the language and use of the correct term is important. If you say Olympian or Olympics when referencing a Paralymlian or the Paralympics, it is not a compliment. It’s not “just as good”. It’s simply incorrect. If we use the correct Language, we can make it easier for the next little Ezra to find his path. That's all I have right now. Go get your popcorn! Clayton United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee International Paralympic Committee Angel City Sports NBCUniversal NBC Sports NBC Olympics LA28 Olympic & Paralympic Games Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026