Five years after the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Andrew Parsons returned to the Japanese capital from August 28–30 to see how the city’s disability inclusion efforts have evolved since the flame went out.
“I grade this, not 10, but 10.5 in terms of inclusion,” Parsons told reporters at a press conference following a visit to Tokyo Metropolitan Komei Gakuen, a special needs school in Setagaya Ward, on Sunday. “Congratulations. You’re doing a very good job.”
Tokyo Metropolitan Komei Gakuen. (©Japan Forward)
The school was chosen to showcase a program the Tokyo Metropolitan Government runs at 35 special needs schools across the city, opening their sports facilities on weekends so people with disabilities can try Para sports close to home—some 120 sessions a year.
Parsons’ visit fell on one of those open days, giving him a firsthand look at the kind of grassroots access programs that have grown out of the 2020 Games.
Parsons was joined on the trip by Executive Director of the Paralympic Games Colleen Wrenn. The delegation toured Ariake Arena, special needs schools, and public transportation facilities to see the barrier-free infrastructure and inclusive social programs that have taken root since 2020.
Building an Accessible Tokyo
The infrastructure behind that inclusion push is substantial. Nearly 98% of Tokyo’s railway stations now have elevators, and every Toei subway platform has been fitted with doors, a change credited with reducing platform falls to zero.
City ordinances have pushed accessible seating in theaters and venues, along with step-free hotel rooms with wider entranceways. Public interest has grown alongside the hardware. A TMG-sponsored Boccia tournament has expanded from 40 teams in 2022 to 100 this year.
Para sports volunteer registrations have also climbed from roughly 4,300 in 2021 to about 10,000 as of this past July, while corporate participation in the TEAM BEYOND support program has grown to some 1,800 companies.
Venues built for the Games have found second lives, too—Ariake Tennis Forest Park now serves as the national training hub for wheelchair tennis, while the Sea Forest Waterway hosts everything from Paralympian training to the Canoe World Cup.
Asked to sum up his impressions in one word, Parsons chose “inclusion.” He credited technology such as avatars and tablets with helping children with disabilities attend mainstream schools wherever possible. At the same time, Tokyo continues to operate dozens of special needs schools for students and families who prefer that setting, particularly those with severe disabilities.
Breaking Barriers Through Technology
The school visit’s gaming and e-sports demonstrations left a particular impression. Parsons recalled a conversation with a gamer named Jeni, a Para e-sports player with muscular dystrophy who competes using a self-built chin-operated controller and reached the top 300 out of over 5,300 entrants at EVO2024, one of the world’s largest fighting game tournaments.
eSports exhibition match. (©Japan Forward)
Parsons described him as having built his own adaptive setup to play competitively despite a severe disability. “I asked him how he developed this. He said, ‘I created my own way of playing video games,'” Parsons said. “That’s the power of technology—connecting him to a wider community, helping him to feel more included.”
He drew a similar lesson from watching students who couldn’t attend the event in person compete anyway, playing fencing, shooting, and boccia through avatars.
“The reason technology exists is to make sure we make the lives of people easier or less challenging, and to have a more inclusive society,” Parsons said. “I think we just saw it today.”
Taking Inclusion Beyond Sport
Pressed on how the IPC has responded to the politicization of diversity and inclusion in recent years, Parsons was measured.
“In every society around the world, not only in one country or another, there are efforts that need to be promoted,” he said, pointing to setbacks during the COVID-19 pandemic, when health services “that were supposed to be inclusive […] were stagnant, even in very developed countries.”
He argued that Para athletes remain the movement’s best advocates for change. “If we remove the barriers, a person with a disability can do incredible things and inspire people,” Parsons said. “Change starts with sport, because we don’t only want that in sport—we want that to be an example. We want barriers to be removed in education, in politics, in employment, in every aspect of society.”
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Author: Daniel Manning
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