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Paralympic Ambassadors

Beijing Gold medallist Cameron Leslie, a West Auckland local, training at WestWave. is in the swimming line-up announced by Paralympics New Zealand. The 8 strong team is more than double that of Beijing and Cameron told a British High Commission interviewer in May that he’s looking forward to the larger, but still intimate, squad.

Outsiders can only imagine the sense of camaraderie existing between team-mates at this level, especially when, as Cameron pointed out, disability may preclude team sports in childhood. 

Another New Zealand Paralympian, Timothy Prendergast, is up for election to one of six posts on the Athletes Council, the collective voice of Paralympic athletes within the International Paralympic Committee and the Paralympic Movement.

Team spirit and representation among disabled people may be a talking point this summer in the UK where French multinational  “Atos” have been contracted in to test eligibility for disability benefits. Medicalized testing and withdrawal of benefits accompanies reports of further hardship and public disability abuse, according to NZ disability activist Chris J. Ford, of Dunedin University, who noted cases of “disabled and mentally ill people committing suicide”. 

With the current National Government’s tendency to imitate right-wing UK policies, disabled people in New Zealand need strong representatives and ambassadors as never before.

Angel Garden