Is there space on the podium for us all?

People with intellectual disabilities (ID) have cognitive deficits which impact on their daily lives, requiring them to receive additional support. Having ID also means that an individual’s ability to compete in sports at an elite level is impaired resulting in potential eligibility to the Paralympics, rather than the Olympics, in a class called “Intellectual Impairment”. First entering into the Paralympic in 1992, athletes with ID competed separately, but by Atlanta, 1996 the events were integrated and 54 ID athletes competed alongside everybody else. This rose to 244 ID athletes in Sydney, 2000. However, in a disastrous episode at this event the ID Spanish basketball team, cheated and fielded athletes who did not have ID. There was an investigation and it was found that there was purposeful misrepresentation, but also that the systems in place to check eligibility were not strong enough to prevent such occurrences. The whole impairment group of ID was then suspended from competing in the Paralympics and for the next twelve years elite athletes with ID lost out on Paralympic opportunities.