Paris has a great opportunity to host an inclusive and successful Paralympic Games and get right what many previous Games have failed to do, according to former wheelchair athlete Paul Nunnari.
“[Disability] doesn’t dictate who you are, what you do, how you are,” he told Central News.
“Atlanta was terrible. Sydney was benchmark best practice and then Athens was not as good as Sydney.
“[We] won’t be able to tell until the [Paris] Games have actually happened.”
Nunnari, 51, a disability inclusion consultant and Paralympics silver medalist from the Macarthur area in western Sydney, added it is important media representations of disability change from the existing ‘medical’ model to a ‘social’ model.
The social model advocates “a person’s disability is not the reason why they can’t participate”, but rather the major barriers for people living with disability are “attitudinal, physical and communication barriers”.
“If we remove those barriers then people with disability can participate to their full potential with equity and dignity,” he told Central News.
“The Paralympic Games is two weeks where every single barrier has been removed. Every barrier!”
However he also noted: “A lot of these host cities say they’re going to do all this stuff, and then when the event comes it just falls short [so removing these barriers] is in the hands of the host city and the culture within that host city.”
The Paris Paralympics are scheduled to run for two weeks from August 28.
Nunnari has been a wheelchair user since he was 11 after “sustaining a spinal chord injury due to a road trauma”. He said that the first thing he wanted to do when he was told he’d have to use a wheelchair was “learn to do wheelies” and “chase nurses in the chair”.
I still have that image of that guy in my head. And that’s who I became, I became that guy in that poster.
He didn’t see the wheelchair as a negative thing, but instead said: “It was just a set of wheels, it was cool.”
He recalls one of the early days in hospital that he was able to wheel around in a chair, seeing a poster with a “fully athletic” man in a race wheelchair promoting the 1984 Paralympic Games.
“When I looked at him, I saw me and I saw what I could be,” he said. “That was a really profound moment for me, and actually had a really profound impact on my life.
“I still have that image of that guy in my head. And that’s who I became, I became that guy in that poster.
“[It was] the first time since my injury I saw something that I could resonate and connect with.”
Nunnari competed in various wheelchair athletics events at the Atlanta, Sydney and Athens Paralympics, winning silver in the 4 x 100 metre relay at the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney. He also competed five times in the Sadler’s Midnight Sun Race in Alaska — a 430km race completed over six days — three of which he won.
He described his experience competing in the Sadler’s race as “one of the most profound races and amazing experiences I’ve ever had… it just challenged me as a person to be a better athlete”.
But it was not without its challenges, Paul trained 250-300km a week in preparation and said when race day came: “I just blew everyone out of the water. And I know that sounds a little bit conceited but I just had really good preparation, I didn’t underestimate the course.”
Paul said sport has given him many wonderful opportunities.
“I’d like to think that through that experience I’ve also provided opportunities to other people throughout my life,” he added.
Friend and former Macarthur Disability Services colleague, Kylie Crnek-Gergeson said she envied his “ability to just flick over into that radical discipline” as an athlete, but more than that, commended the way he treats other people.
“He’s very inclusive,” she said.
Paul Nunnari. Photo: Charli Derrig.
Nunnari claims a lack of positive and regular advertising showing people with disabilities continues to blight public expectations.
“Nearly 20 per cent of Australians have a visible or non-visible disability, yet only 7 per cent of ads include them,” he said.
He called that 7 per cent a “very negative portrayal of what disability is like”.
Media and entertainment is not the only way people living with disability are underrepresented. In 2018, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released a report showing 53.4 per cent of people with a disability were in the labour force, compared with 84.1 per cent of people without a disability.
Tracey Corbin-Matchett, the chief executive of Bus Stop Films, an inclusive filmmaking company, said it was important to change attitudes in the media and film industry.
“Attitudes are the biggest barrier to people with disability getting employment,” she said.
Nunnari has been a member of Bus Stop Films advisory board since 2017 and was recently appointed CEO of Inclusively Made, a company striving to create standards of authentic representation to ensure film, TV and brand content is accessible and inclusive.
He said most people are very receptive and supportive, but acknowledged: “There’s still a long way to go.”
Nunnari added people with disabilities just wanted to be recognised for the person that they are and be afforded the same opportunities.
“That’s fundamental,” he said. “We just want the opportunity to showcase what we can do. A lot of people with disability never get that opportunity. Ever.”
Main photo by Charli Derrig.
