On the first day of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, Sarah Adam made history by becoming the first American woman to score a goal in wheelchair rugby at the Paralympics. Adam ended up scoring six tries in 16 minutes on the court, leading the U.S. to a 51-48 victory over Canada in the group stage.
Beyond the score, Adam hoped her performance showed just how much women can do in a brutal sport (nicknamed Murderball for the full-contact collisions) that has struggled to attract and retain females. “There’s a place for us on the court,” she said. AP News“We need more women to get out there and be visible so people know this is an option for them.”
Adam is a professor of occupational therapy and a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis who played softball before being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2016. She is one of several women around the world who are pioneering in the co-ed, but still predominantly male, sport.
A total of eight women play on Paris’ wheelchair rugby teams overall, double the number that will play at the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics. Paralympic.orgThis year, Adam became the first woman to play for the U.S. team. Australia has an unprecedented three women on its 12-player roster in Paris. Denmark, Germany and Japan also have women on the team.
While more women are taking to the court, in Paris there were 88 men and 11 times more women, the Associated Press reported, meaning there is still work to be done to increase participation.
“It’s going too slowly,” Australia’s Ella Sabljak told AP News. “Australia is definitely blazing a trail. Other teams definitely need to catch up and understand and recognise that women add value to the sport. We’re not a burden. We’re not special. We’re not difficult to deal with. We’re top athletes among other top athletes. So I think people need to change their perspective on what women bring to the sport.”
Wheelchair rugby teams have incentives to include women on their team as a way to promote inclusion. The sport’s rules reward teams for including women on their team. In the Paralympics, the sport classifies players according to their physical ability, with the least able player receiving 0.5 points and the most able player receiving 0.5 points each, totaling 3.5 points. When playing in teams of four, the maximum score is 8 points. International Paralympic CommitteeBut each woman on a team adds 0.5 points to the team, a rule that helps create a “level playing field,” Adam told The Associated Press.
Andrea Bandon of the University of British Columbia, who studies women’s participation in Paralympic sports, told The Associated Press that she encourages teams to recruit and develop female athletes. “There’s value in women and men competing together,” Bandon said. “They recognize each other’s athletic abilities and they know that women can compete at that level, too.”
