www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Friday, August 7, 2015 | 6 Parapan Am Games deserve our attention Ideally, the Parapan American Games (Aug. 7-15) should have taken place at the same time as the recently-concluded Pan American Games (July 10-26). Instead, both the Parapan Am Games, and its global cousin the Paralympic Games, run almost immediately after the Pan Am Games and Olympic Games, respectively. That schedule results in an almost after-thought feel to the paralympic events, which doesn't seem equitable to the participating athletes who are dedicated to their respective sports. While athletes with disabilities have a forum to compete against their peers, there's a widening gap both for athlete sponsorship and media attention between the Pan Am and Olympic games and their para games equivalents. Part of that disparity can be explained by the paralympic movement's relative infancy, while the remainder can be blamed on the decision to hold these athletic competitions as separate events. While the paralympic movement has roots that extend back more than 100 years, it has only been since the conclusion of the Second World War that competitions for athletes with disabilities have gained worldwide momentum. The rst Paralympic Games debuted in Rome, Italy in 1960, while Toronto's Parapan Am Games will be only the fth edition since their debut in Mexico City in 1999. Only very recently (starting in 1988) have Olympic Games and Paralympic Games taken place back-toback in the same host country. While this month's Parapan Am Games is signi cantly smaller in scope than the Pan Am Games -- roughly 1,600 athletes from 28 countries, compared to more than 6,100 from 41 nations -- the Parapan Am athletes have worked as hard as Pan Am athletes to reach this level of competition and are as deserving of attention and inclusion. Without a stronger push to either merge paralympic with non-paralympic games as one event, or perhaps positioning paralympic events to take place immediately before the larger events, we suspect not much will change. That's not fair to Halton athletes like Oakville's Melanie Hawtin, a wheelchair basketball parathlete; Burlington's Brandon Wagner, also a wheelchair basketball parathlete, who proudly carried the Parapan Am Games torch earlier this week as it passed along the city's waterfront prior to the start of the games; Milton's Asad Murtaza, who competes in table tennis; and Flamborough's Joel Dembe, who will compete in wheelchair tennis. Without question, the media has a role to play in leveling the playing eld. There likely will be signi cantly less attention -- both in televised coverage and the reporting of event outcomes -- paid to these games, which is unfair to athletes, who have invested both time and effort to become the best they can. If the goal is to provide physically-challenged athletes equal opportunity to excel at their sport, we should be doing just that and one of the rst steps is doing more to close the gap in the attention their efforts receive. Editorial C H E C K I N G O U T T H E "Connected to your Community" E X H I B I T S 5046 Mainway, Unit 2, Burlington ON L7L 5Z1 General Inquiries: (905) 845-3824 Classi ed Advertising: (905) 632-4440 Circulation: 5300 Harvester Rd., Burlington (905) 631-6095 Volume 53 | Number 63 The Oakville Beaver is a division of Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Vice President and Group Publisher of Metroland West Regional General Manager Halton Region Editor in Chief Advertising Director NEIL OLIVER DAVID HARVEY JILL DAVIS DANIEL BAIRD Managing Editor ANGELA BLACKBURN RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director Business Manager Director of Production SANDY PARE MARK DILLS MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager At the Town of Oakville's annual Emancipation Day celebration, held on the grounds of the Oakville Museum at Erchless Estate, there was lots to keep people, and pets, entertained. Here, Wolfy, an Alaskan husky, checks out the statue of a wolf as the more diminutive Chiquita, a Chihuahua-mix, does the same by sitting atop the statue. The sculpture is one of three life-sized wolves and a moose, created and donated to the Town by local artists Bert Jackson and Steve Hudak. They are life-sized replicas of two of Canada's most majestic creatures. The moose statue weighs 1,000 lbs. The statues were donated to the Town to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Oakville's twinning with its sister city, Neyagawa, Japan. Bronze replicas were sent to Neyagawa. | photo by Justin Greaves Oakville Beaver (Follow on Twitter @halton_photog or facebook.com/HaltonPhotog) Director of Distribution CHARLENE HALL KIM MOSSMAN Circulation Manager Proud Official Media Sponsor For: Canadian Circulations Audit Board Member Recognized for Excellence by Reporter should dig into good news story Re: My View: Oakville's scal health ranks No. 1, Oakville Beaver, Friday, July 31, 2015 If this article was indeed submitted by the mayor, it does not belong in a department called, `My View' because it's not a view, it's public relations. I've always felt that we had a well-run town/city, and it's good to know that what appears to be an independent rating agency thinks so too. That's good news. But the article accompanied by the mayor's photograph fails to give anyone credit for this good news. If we were in the middle of a municipal election campaign, I would think the mayor was patting himself on the back, and I doubt the Beaver would publish it. Come on, tell us why we are scally healthy -- how it's done. Was it previous mayors? Is it a responsible council or is it dedicated staff whom the politicians tend to muzzle? There's a good news story here, but it should be told by a reporter, not the mayor. Ross Connell, Oakville Letter to the Editor Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association Proud Official Media Sponsor For: The Oakville Beaver welcomes letters from its readers. Letters will be edited for clarity, length, legal considerations and grammar. In order to be published all letters must contain the name, address and phone number of the author. Letters should be addressed to: The Editor, Oakville Beaver, 5046 Mainway, Unit 2, Burlington ON L7L 5Z1 or via email to ablackburn@oakvillebeaver.com. 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