Years after winning gold medals at the Paralympics and numerous World Championship titles, Heinrich Popow thinks the future for impaired individuals is brighter than it has actually ever before been, many thanks partially to the success and expanding appeal of theParalympics But there is one certain social problem the reduced leg amputee want to see adjustment: Adults must watch individuals with impairments with the exact same eyes and interest as youngsters.
“The biggest change I would love to see is to break the barriers of having this, we call it in German, Fear of contactbeing afraid to come too close,” Popow informed DW. “The manner in which youngsters engage with individuals with an impairment, and likewise with things they see for the very first time. That’s what I want to see grownups do.
“So when I, for example, go to kindergarten with shorts in the summer, I’m the coolest daddy in the world because kids accept me. And then they ask me, ‘What do you have?’ So I explain. And because my two daughters, they always put some new stickers on my legs, every day I have a different leg.
“What I really would love to see is that we accept each other the way we are and learn from kids.”
One of Germany’s biggest para professional athletes
Popow preserves that the amputation of his reduced leg was harder on his moms and dads than on his 9-year-old self. He remained energetic in sporting activities, and ultimately picked sports at the sporting activities club,Bayer Leverkusen In 2002, at age 19, Popow won a bronze medal at the International Paralympics Committee World Athletics Championships in Lille,France Three bronze medals in the T42 classification complied with at the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens, after that a silver in Beijing 2008, after that a gold medal in the 100-meters in theLondon Paralympics He won gold in the lengthy dive in the 2016 Games inRio “Sports gave me the opportunity to push barriers and limits,” statedPopow And it still does.
Heinrich Popow won gold at the London 2012 Olympics and has actually likewise seen lengthy dive successImage: Volkmann/ IMAGO
In enhancement to pressing and pushing those that might be newly-disabled towards sporting activity nowadays, he proactively advertises and safeguards individuals with impairments in Germany and all over the world. He is usually seen in centers and various other interaction chances for the wheelchair company, Ottobock (that uses him), which concentrates on, to name a few points, prosthetics for those that have actually had amputations, injuries or neurological illness.
Inclusivity types success
Popow’s journeys have actually led him to think that nations that succeed at the Paralympics normally succeed with the inclusivity of the impaired back in the house. Germany ended up an unsatisfactory 11th in the 2024 Paralympics medals table. Popow thinks he has an idea why.
“Grassroot sports in Germany are not improving the way they need to improve,” he informed DW. Federal federal government study in 2022 recommended majority of impaired individuals in Germany prevented sporting activities. Part of the factor might be 90% of all playing areas and gyms were not obstacle totally free. Meanwhile, insurance provider usually do not cover clinical tools for sporting activities.
” I really feel the federal government and insurance firms can conserve a great deal of cash if they understand spending for impaired sporting activities is far better than the costs from a drug store. Sports is the most effective medication.
“I do running clinics, and I see activity all over the world. The Netherlands is doing a great job. It is the size of the German state of North Rhine Westfalia, and it is more successful than our whole country.” The Netherlands was fourth in the 2024 Paralympics medal table.
Does the International Day of Persons with Disabilities aid?
Popow is an avowed booster for the impaired. He makes certain that the someday of the year alloted by the UN to advertise the civil liberties and wellness of individuals with impairments declares in manner ins which go much past easy understanding. “I forget the day of my marriage sometimes,” he joked. “But this UN day becomes more and more special.”
Yet he recognizes that having actually dealt with his handicap because 1992 (he was 9 when an uncommon kind of cancer cells in his left calf bone resulted in his reduced leg being cut off), the day directly matters much less to him than it formerly did. Those that are just recently impaired see points much in a different way, and the recommendation of that is very important, he stated.
” I have no constraints from my handicap in my day-to-day live. It is loaded with youngsters, task and every little thing, however no more activity is very important.
“But to be truthful, and this is something likewise the (handicap) area thinks of, it’s more crucial if we think of impairments daily, like the understanding we must have daily.
“A special day is nice, but it is only one step. We need the second and third day.”
