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Rewarding para-athletes: It’s not about the money, but the principle

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Singapore’s Yip Pin Xiu with her two gold medals. Photo: Reuters

It’s been a month since Singapore was struck with an acute case of Schooling-mania. This week, another one of our athletes is the proud winner of not one, but two, Olympic-level gold medals.

While Schooling’s victory was both inspirational and extremely well-deserved, Yip Pin Xiu was actually the first Singaporean to get a gold medal in an Olympic-level race when she won a gold in the 50m backstroke at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics. This year’s outing to Rio has added two more golds to her collection, in both the 100m and 50m backstroke races. She also broke two world records.

Yip’s victory has reignited the debate over the disparity between the way Singapore recognises the achievements of able-bodied athletes and para-athletes. While Schooling received $1 million for his gold medal, Yip received $200,000 in 2008 for her first gold medal. The difference here isn’t just awkward, it’s embarrassingly large. Many Singaporeans have once again called for para-athletes to be rewarded on par with able-bodied athletes, and rightly so.

But excuses, old and new, have been pouring in, too. The level of competition is not the same, we’re told, because there are fewer competitors in the Paralympics. There are lots of little details that will need to be dealt with, so we really shouldn’t be spending so much time on this issue. And while Yip’s achievement is remarkable, it’s just not as impactful as Schooling’s win.

All these counter-arguments only serve to highlight one thing: that Singapore is not committed to equality. And that says something about us, not the para-athletes.

Sure, there are fewer challengers in each category in the Paralympics. Anyone who sits down and thinks about it for two minutes will realise that there’s a reason for that. But that’s not even the point, because rewards for athletic achievement should really be based on the individual’s excellence in his/her field, rather than some bizarre zero-sum concept of what competitive sports is about. A gold in the Paralympics is no less of a feat than a gold in the Olympics. If you think it is, then you try swimming a 100m backstroke without using your legs.

Arguing that Yip’s wins aren’t as impactful as Schooling’s single triumph ignores the fact that we live in an ableist world, where para-athletes just aren’t seen as being on par with their able-bodied counterparts. As Yip herself pointed out, it’s only been in more recent years that Singapore’s para-athletes have received more acknowledgement.

That Yip’s win didn’t trigger waves of hysteria and joy as seen in the aftermath of Schooling’s swim isn’t a failing on Yip’s part. It’s not her fault that society pays more attention to able-bodied sporting events and gets so excited about an able-bodied 21-year-old swimmer that we obsess over his favourite food and require his mother to tell us if he has a girlfriend. It’s the reality of the society in which we currently live: we value able-bodied sporting events and the athletes who compete in them more.

That reality is the crux of the debate here. It’s not about the money, but the principle of equality. If we really do believe in equality, then we must change this status quo where able-bodied athletes’ achievements are seen as more deserving and more important. If we commit to this principle of equality, then we won’t be daunted by the fact that there are “a lot of little details” – everything at state-level has lots of little details, but we deal with them when we think the fundamentals are important enough.

Singapore’s Paralympians have worked just as hard as Olympians to get to where they are. They do it knowing that they have been, are, and perhaps will continue to be for some time, valued and recognised less (apart from the obligatory congratulatory press releases).

Things have got better over the years, but here is a chance for us to take a larger leap: to make a public and committed declaration of equality between people who are able-bodied and people with disabilities. We’ve talked up our para-athletes a little more in recent years; this is a chance for us to, quite literally, put our money where our mouth is.

Kirsten Han is a Singaporean blogger and journalist. She is also involved in the We Believe in Second Chances campaign for the abolishment of the death penalty. A social media junkie, she tweets at @kixes. The views expressed are her own.