It is not the fact that the Royal Mail have said they will not produce stamps for each Team GB Paralympic gold medal-winner which is annoying (although it is). What has really got my goat is the supine way ParalympicsGB has accepted it.
In a post on their website, they said:
“In Beijing, ParalympicsGB won 42 gold medals over 10 days of competition, including nine in one day, and we are expecting a similarly world-class level of performance from our athletes this time around. As a result, it is logistically and practically impossible for Royal Mail to produce an individual stamp for every one of the gold medallists for ParalympicsGB.”
So because our Paralympians are *better* than our Olympians they should get *less* recognition? Where’s the logic in that?
You can be damn sure that if by some stroke of skill, luck and genius the Olympic team won 42 gold medals there’d be stamps of all of them. And how hard can it be to produce 42 stamps when they’re already producing a minimum of 22 for the Olympics?
Yes, Paralympians get gold postboxes in their hometowns, and there will be a series of six stamps celebrating our winners, but when LOCOG has done very well to place the Olympics and Paralympics on equal terms, giving our able-bodied and disabled athletes the same measure of respect, this difference becomes all the more noticeable.
The truth is, the Royal Mail doesn’t think that the public will be interested in Paralympic winners like Olympic winners, despite the Paralympics producing such stars as Tanni Grey-Thompson and (for South Africa) Oscar Pistorius. What’s worse is ParalympicsGB seems to accept that, giving feeble gratitude for the little recognition it feels it deserves.
Paralympic achievements are no less than Olympic achievements and Paralympic athletes deserve no less recognition and support – especially from their own team.
Josh Spero is the editor of Spear’s
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