Disability sport came about largely because of exclusion, because mainstream sport didn't want disabled people to be part of it.
Interpretation
Disability sports emerged in response to the exclusion of disabled individuals from mainstream sports.
The quote highlights the historical context in which disability sports were developed, pointing to the exclusionary practices of mainstream sports that prevented disabled individuals from participating. This exclusion motivated the creation of specialized sports programs and events, allowing disabled athletes to compete and showcase their talents in a more inclusive environment.
In practice
In a speech about inclusivity in sports, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of making sports accessible to all.
Perhaps we need to redefine our idea of role models; they're not always elite athletes whose success might seem too distant or unachievable. Sometimes it's our friend who just smashed her first 10k, or our Zumba teacher who is enthusiastic, encouraging and real.
I wouldn't have had a sporting career if it hadn't been for the volunteers who agreed to coach me, as a teenager, growing up in south Wales, at a time when others were telling me that wheelchair racing wasn't really athletics.
As a disabled person I have to think and plan far more than anyone else. If I want to catch a bus I have to consider whether the ramp works, whether there will be someone in the one space who doesn't want to move. It can be a constant worry.
Before being a player, I was a diehard fan of Roma, so I know what the fans felt when we won.
"Hit it with the back of your left hand" was the first swing thought I ever heard, brusquely bu not unlovingly put to me by the aunt-in-law who had moments before placed a golf club in my virgin grip. I was twenty-five, and had spent my youth in a cloisterd precinct of teh middle class where golf was a rumoured something, like champagne breakfasts and divorce, that the rich did.
We know that hockey is where we live, where we can best meet and overcome pain and wrong and death. Life is just a place where we spend time between games.
One reason golf is such an exasperating game is that a thing we learned is so easily forgotten, and we find ourselves struggling year after year with faults we had discovered and corrected time and again.
Football is simple but the hardest thing to do is play simple football.
Bondy is a city that breathes football.
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