As a six-time Paralympian, Canada's Greg Westlake knows the challenges of travel well. While the Paralympics are sponsored by an airline and heavily coordinated, challenges often arise in traveling to non-Paralympic tournaments.Luca Bruno/The Associated Press
For Paralympic athletes, travelling for competition can sometimes be as complicated as competing itself. Alongside their luggage, many travel with wheelchairs, prosthetics, sleds, or sit-skis, which are all equipment that are not only essential to their sport, but also to daily life.
When everything goes smoothly, athletes can move through airports and onto planes like any other traveller. But when something goes wrong, the consequences can be far greater than a delayed suitcase. Athletes will be thinking of this as they begin to depart the Milan Cortina Winter Games, which concluded on Sunday.
At the Paralympic Games, athletes say, travel has improved over the years. That is credit to the evolving accessibility of the Games, but also the communication process between organizing parties.
“You’re not always going to have an amazing travel experience, which is true for anybody who travels for work,” said Para hockey player Greg Westlake, who took part in his sixth Games at Milan Cortina. “But there are some tough flights.”
Officials within the Canadian Paralympic Committee work closely with airlines and organizers to communicate athletes’ needs ahead of major competitions. That process involves gathering detailed information about mobility devices, medical requirements and the equipment athletes will be travelling with, said CPC chief sport officer, Catherine Gosselin-Després.
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Typically, each Paralympic team (Para alpine team, Para Nordiq team, Para Hockey, etc.) has a staff lead, who is responsible for communicating their team’s travel needs to the executive team at the CPC. That information is later relayed to the travel agent the governing body works with, which is the final step before tickets are booked.
“The more information we collect from athletes, the more the airline can provide good service,” said Gosselin-Després.
This planning process extends to athletes’ transportation out of the airport and into the Olympic villages, and vice versa at the Games’ conclusion, which includes requesting accessible buses, extra luggage space and staff to help with loading and unloading.
For Gosselin-Després, the biggest concern surrounds the on-ground staff that is part of the entire process.
Canada's Billy Bridges, right, seen here competing in the Vancouver 2010 Games, said airport staff's lack of education on how to handle para-athletes' equipment is a common problem in travel.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
“People’s attitude towards disability is what causes the issue,” Gosselin-Després said. “People who work at the airport or are operating the bus, it’s either that they’ve never been exposed to it, or are uncomfortable and don’t really know what to do.
“I believe that has been the main barrier, and where I think the experience has been more frustrating.”
In fact, she says the higher the disability is, the more uncomfortable the staff has reacted at times, only increasing the level of discomfort for athletes. For six-time Paralympian Billy Bridges, it’s all about educating the staff who are part of the event.
“We’ve seen our sleds and our wheelchairs just get chucked into bins,” said the former Para ice hockey player. “My equipment has to be able to handle a 280-pound Norwegian smashing into me while I’m going full speed. So if my equipment breaks on a flight, something really bad has to have happened.”
Poor treatment toward athletes and the equipment they travel with can be humiliating, Bridges and Gosselin-Després highlight, as what they travel with is essential for everyday function.
“This is an extension of their bodies. I understand why, when they have a bad experience, they go on social media and talk about it,” said Gosselin-Després. “It’s expensive, and it’s like if you took their heart out of them.”
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Some athletes choose to travel with their game equipment, while others ask for it to be shipped ahead of time to ensure things arrive on time without any damage. When items arrive broken or not in competition condition, the airlines are expected to compensate the athletes. The CPC also has an insurance plan in place for travel items.
Ottobock, a German medical technology company, operates in the athletes’ village during the Games. The well-known hub provides welding and maintenance services for prosthetics, wheelchairs and other competition gear that players can access at any time.
“I’ve broken prosthetics, and my wheelchairs at Paralympics that weren’t even part of my sporting equipment, and you just wheel yourself into the Ottobock and it’s replaced immediately, for free,” recalled Bridges.
This, he said, is part of the Paralympic treatment that athletes don’t get to feel elsewhere, comparing it to how NHL players might travel.
“When you’re travelling to a Paralympic Games . . . you feel like a superstar,” he said.
Air Canada is the CPC’s air travel sponsor for the Paralympic Games, but outside of this competition, like a World Cup or a world championship, athletes can choose which airline to fly with, explained Gosselin-Després. Outside those highly co-ordinated environments, the experience can be very different.
“We’ve shown up in Japan and airlines hadn’t loaded a single everyday wheelchair,” said Bridges. “We had to use hospital wheelchairs for the entire stay that we were there, while our wheelchairs sat in the Pearson Airport.”
For Bridges, one of the biggest changes the travel industry could make would be redesigning aircraft seating to accommodate wheelchairs.
Currently, wheelchair users must transfer into a narrow aisle chair to reach their seat and remain in a standard airline seat for the duration of the flight. He believes planes should include accessible spaces that allow passengers to remain in their own mobility devices. Such changes may be difficult for airlines focused on maximizing capacity, but they would significantly improve independence for travellers with disabilities.
“It takes away their dignity, and it takes away their ability to go to the bathroom once they’re in the air. It takes away their life,” Bridges expressed. “I want every disabled person in the world to be able to be independent.”
For Paralympic athletes preparing to compete at the highest level, the goal is simple: make travel one less thing to worry about. And while the Games have shown what fully accessible travel can look like, athletes say the challenge now is bringing that standard to the rest of the journey.