Paralympics, athletes tell the media: “It should just be about sport”

With the upcoming Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympic Games, national and international media attention is once again turning to Paralympic sport. But how is it presented to the public?

The study “It should just be about sport!”: exploring Italian athletes' perspectives in paralympic media coverage – conducted by Athanasios Pappous and Pablo Iniesta at the University of Bologna’s Department for Life Quality Studies and published in the international journal Frontiers in Sports and Active Living – collected the direct testimonies of 17 high-level Italian Paralympic athletes to investigate how they perceive their representation in the media.

“It should just be about sport” summarises the shared message of the athletes. They call for less emphasis on disability and greater attention to competition, athletic performance and sporting results.

According to the interviews, media coverage is still often dominated by two main narratives: the heroic athlete who “overcomes” disability, and a pity-based narrative that focuses on personal suffering. Both shift the focus away from the core of the sporting experience: competition, technical preparation and performance.

“Disability is part of our identity, but it does not define our sporting value,” the athletes explained.

“A representation that focuses more on the sporting dimension,” says Professor Sakis Pappous, “can help recognise the work of athletes and promote a more aware, fair and inclusive sporting culture, capable of communicating Paralympic sport for what it is: high-level sport.”

Social media are also playing an increasingly important role, allowing athletes to build a more direct and authentic narrative of their sporting experience, bypassing filters and stereotypes.

The study also highlights that the visibility of Paralympic sport, although it has grown in recent years, remains concentrated around the Paralympic Games. During the rest of the sporting cycle, coverage is much more limited, making the athletes’ sporting journey less visible.

The research has also led to the creation of an online training programme, developed according to the principle “nothing about us without us.” The project involved 25 Paralympic athletes, including champions Martina Caironi and Giulia Ghiretti, starting directly from their lived experience to show how they wish to be portrayed and how media coverage can be improved.

The course is free and open to students, journalists and anyone interested in understanding and challenging the stigma surrounding disability in sports communication.

It represents a long-term and sustainable public engagement initiative with a strong international dimension. The French Paralympic Committee has already expressed interest in using it to train young journalists in preparation of the 2030 Alpine Paralympic Games. The course is currently available in English; the Italian version is already available at this link, and French and Spanish versions will follow soon, helping to maximise its global training impact.

The research and the development of the online training programme were made possible thanks to a prestigious competitive grant awarded to the University of Bologna. The  project is a PRIN-PNR, funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU, Mission 4 Component 2 (CUP J53D23016770001), with institutional support from the Emilia-Romagna Regional Paralympic Committee.

At the end of January, the project’s conclusion was marked by the2nd International Symposium on Social Legacies of the Games: Perspectives towards Milano-Cortina 2026, which featured prominent speakers including Charis Tsolakis, President of the International Olympic Academy (IOA), champions Martina Caironi and Giulia Ghiretti, scholar Laura Misener, and representatives of the French and Spanish Paralympic Committees.