Special Olympic, Paralympic & Olympic Athletes Redefine the Playing Field
June 23, 2023
For the first time ever, athletes from Special Olympics Great Britain, Team Great Britain and Paralympics Great Britain have joined together in a campaign to tackle bias and discrimination. The ‘This is What a Level Playing Field Looks Like’ initiative calls for fairer representation, recognizing the importance and contribution of everyone no matter their ability, gender, race, sexual orientation or beliefs.
Created and facilitated by media provider Ocean Outdoor, the visibility initiative uses the power of sport to speak about inclusivity and prejudice and challenge the culture of marginalization. Participating athletes include Special Olympics GB athletes Mitchell Camp and Lily Mills, Team GB Olympic athletes Kyra Edwards and Kye Whyte and Team GB Paralympic athlete Menna FitzPatrick MBE and her competition guide Katie Guest.
Ocean’s equality, diversity and inclusion campaign will be amplified on social media and underpinned by the hashtag #daretodream, featuring the athletes as they prepare, train and compete in their competitions.
The six athletes' faces will appear on high profile outdoor advertising screens across the UK this summer as they work to make opportunities more accessible to diverse groups. Related content will roll out until the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The Special Olympics World Games, currently taking place in Berlin and including 7,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities, is also being featured on advertising screens in ten cities across the UK for the first time to address the mainstream media's largely ignoring one of the “world’s largest inclusive sports events.”
Special Olympics is the largest provider of year-round sports programming and coaching for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. Its World Games, which commenced on June 17 and conclude on Sunday, is 2023's biggest inclusive sporting event with athletes from nearly 190 countries competing in 26 sports supported by 3,000 coaches and 20,000 volunteers.
Despite this, however, disability sports get much less media coverage. Although the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics was the most broadcasted Paralympic Games, the Olympics generated more than ten times the coverage than the Paralympics. In the UK, for every one article written about the Paralympics, there were seven produced about the Olympics, even though Team GB Paralympics won 124 medals and Team GB Olympics won 65. Media coverage is important in fuelling inclusivity and therefore these types of statistics results in 67% of UK adults not being able to name a single competitive or retired disabled athlete and almost three-quarters of adults believing that disability sport should be promoted more.
“As a disabled person, I know how important fair representation can be to challenging perceptions and breaking down the barriers we face in our daily lives,” said Dave Clarke, CEO of Paralympics GB. “This exciting new campaign harnesses the unique power of sport to combat discrimination wherever it exists and demonstrates the potential that lives in each and every one of us.”
In addition, live coverage of the Special Olympic World Games are being shown across 21 large screens in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Derby, Glasgow, Southhampton, Nottingham and Newcastle, as well as Westfield Stratford City in London. Fans are able to sit and watch in a dedicated zone in Westfield where ‘possibility not disability’ is highlighted. The activation is in partnership between Ocean Outdoor and Toyota, as well as coverage being presented in association with ESPN.
Special Olympics Europe Eurasia was a 2020 Beyond Sport Global Awards Shortlister for Peace and Social Justice.
Photos: Ocean Outdoor