Status: 08/17/2021 1:24 p.m.
One week before the start of the Paralympic Summer Games, the 4400 athletes are allowed to move into the athletes’ village – a thoroughly barrier-free place. But accessibility is not good everywhere in Japan.
The International Olympic and Paralympic Committees are committed to solidarity for the Tokyo Games. “United by Emotion” – is the common motto that the metropolis and the whole country are still approaching. Japan has set itself the goal of becoming an integrative and inclusive society with the Olympic and Paralympic Games in which people with disabilities should also participate – but so far this has not always been successful.
“The Olympic Games can only be successful if the Paralympics are too,” said Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. Part of the success is creating a barrier-free environment. A number of train stations and airports were therefore rebuilt – for years, wheelchair users were denied access to many of these places.
Yuriko Oda also realizes that Japan has changed on the occasion of the games. She was diagnosed with muscular atrophy at the age of 22 and has been in a wheelchair since she was 26. The 40-year-old advised the Olympic organizers on accessibility.
Hardly any wheelchair users on the streets of Japan
She had been keeping an eye on the Paralympic Games for years and wanted to make Japan accessible to wheelchair users from other countries. That is why she has developed an interactive map as a free app for the smartphone. The users exchange information there, for example, about elevators and accessible toilets. You wanted to create a world in which wheelchair users don’t have to give up, says Oda.
But they do exist, the barriers that cannot yet be circumvented: When Oda is out and about in a wheelchair, she reports, she constantly feels glances. There are hardly any people in wheelchairs on the streets of Japan, so many people would find them strange, says Oda. Other countries are way ahead of Japan in this respect: “The Japanese are more reserved and samurai-like, even if they actually want to help, in the end it is somehow difficult for them.”
Barrier-free through and through – the Olympic Village has opened for Paralympic athletes.
Image: dpa
More and more offers for people with disabilities
Still, more and more is being done for people with disabilities, says Oda. She now experiences Tokyo as largely barrier-free. Most of the train stations in the Paralympic City have been equipped with elevators – but reaching them is not always straightforward. The paths lead over narrow and overcrowded platforms at peak times. Sometimes wheelchair users have to travel several hundred meters.
In each rail car there is an area with places for pregnant women, the elderly and people with disabilities. There are more handholds there that are also accessible for wheelchair users. The structure of the floor stands out a little around the door so that it can also be identified by people with visual impairments. Almost all over Tokyo, such slightly protruding yellow tiles can be found on the sidewalks, through which the visually impaired can see safe paths.
It becomes more difficult for her as a wheelchair user at traditional temples and shrines, says Yuriko Oda. Because of the many steps and gravel paths, these are usually not barrier-free – but things are progressing here too. For example, at Tokyo’s oldest temple, the Sensoji Temple, there are now elevators.
High expectations for the influence of Paralympic Games
When building the Olympic and Paralympic competition venues, accessibility was an important factor right from the start. The new national stadium offers barrier-free toilets and seats, but also quiet rooms for people who react sensitively to excessive stimuli. The hope of many people with disabilities: The competition venues should become models for future buildings and set new standards.
Yuriko Oda also has high expectations of the Paralympics: For Tokyo and all of Japan, these games are much more than a major sporting event – they are an opportunity for Japanese society to fundamentally rethink and to make solidarity more than just a motto.