Barriers, Motivation and the Road to Elite Sport

In honour of the Paralympics, let’s do a deep dive into para and adaptive sports, starting today with the journey to becoming a para-athlete.

There is no single pathway into para sports. Like non-disabled athletes, athletes can arrive through a passion or skill from a young age, coupled with dedication, training and effort. Like in all sports, athletes are motivated for many reasons; rarely only medals. For many athletes this motivation includes identity, autonomy, rehabilitation, community and agency. It can also, of course, be about joy – feeling like the best version of yourself when you’re doing your chosen sport – when you enter “flow” or when everything else drops into the background.

However, to get there para-athletes have additional barriers to success that non-disabled athletes don’t have to deal with, so consistency often looks different in adaptive sports. Depending on the nature of their disability and how it affects them day-to-day, para-athletes may have to train around healthcare, fatigue or pain. In a recent survey of SportAid-supported athletes, 67% said balancing different areas of their life was their biggest challenge.
This study included disabled and non-disabled athletes, so most respondents did not have these added barriers to train around.

Arriving at training may be challenging for disabled athletes because of structural barriers to adaptive sports. Transport and facilities need to be available and accessible, and many athletes need access to specialist equipment and coaching in order to train and compete.

Within competitions such as the Paralympics, athletes are classified based on their disability. This process can be invasive, stressful and confusing for many. This can add an additional cognitive and emotional load that non-disabled athletes do not have to deal with.

Athletes need to train for many hours a week, and for many years, to reach an elite level. They also need a team around them; specialised coaches and others who support them. In order to have access to the time and the team they need, para-athletes need funding.

However, para sports typically receive less commercial sponsorship than non-disabled sports, for a variety of reasons. Media coverage is more cyclical (like just now, around the Paralympics, there is a lot of coverage) and limited, so sponsorship is more likely to be short-term and tied to these events or campaigns. Paralympic athletes need to train all year round, and for years, to reach the elite level – they don’t only need funding during the Paralympics!
So, while the achievements and performance of para-athletes are just as impressive; while the training requirements are just as rigorous; and while the social impact is just as valuable, para-athletes have various barriers to reaching an elite level. Whether it is accessibility, health or funding, para-athletes have a specific, unique set of challenges to overcome.

In my next post, I'll talk about how Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy can support the mental side of the para-athlete journey; helping athletes build resilience, maintain motivation, and perform consistently despite the unique challenges para sport demands.

Ready to see what this could do for you? Book a free first session with me here.