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Adaptive Sports
News From Around The Web
How Inaccessible Film Festivals Silence Disabled Voices In Cinema – New Research
Outdoor enthusiasts who have disabilities: Being active outside ‘changes everything’
Salt Lake City celebrates progress in accessibility
Bringing accessibility to the beach
DEC launches interactive map of accessible recreation opportunities
Greece Aims for Top Spot in Accessible Beaches for the Disabled
Will the Paris Olympics mark a new era of inclusive, accessible sports storytelling?
The Plus-Sized Ride ‘Testers’ Making Theme Parks More Accessible—At Their Own Risk
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Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation Launches Expanded ‘Outdoors for Everyone’ Initiative to Improve Water Accessibility
Meet the Wheelchair User Making Google Maps More Accessible
The Future of Inclusive Travel Q&A: A Simpleview Summit Encore
What Does an Adaptive Bike Fest Look Like?
Sponsors Alpine Electric Bikes and Capital Bike teamed up with RAD to put on the free Adaptive Bike Fest in September, which featured everything from hand cycles to guided bike rides to bike and wheelchair tune-ups.
Organizers said the event was aimed at showing how accessible getting outside and having fun can be, even for those with limited mobility, and providing an opportunity to try out the often hard-to-find accessible equipment without cost. Read more.
TravelAbility Takeaway: Great idea for an event that celebrates new mobile options and emphasizes the fun side of being outdoors on a set of wheels.
Actors With Intellectual Disabilities Steal the Show in “Champions”
Never mind Woody Harrelson. The real standouts of the movie Champions, directed by Bobby Farrelly and adapted from a Spanish film by Mark Rizzo, are the actors who portray the Friends basketball team.
“As a writer, you hope that the actors like the material and that they elevate it in some way,” Rizzo said in a recent interview. “In this film, each and every member of the cast did exactly that. I was blown away by how the funny scenes were just funnier with them in them. They made brilliant choices that I could not have imagined.”
Woody Harrelson plays a tough minor-league coach whose dream of working in the NBA is derailed when he is court-mandated to work with a team of players with intellectual disabilities, the Friends.
Rizzo said his goal was to allow plenty of room for the young actors to make the creative choices necessary for bringing their characters to life.
“For me, it was making sure that the disabled people in the movie carried as much story and as much agency as the non-disabled people. That was really my sole focus. I wanted to give them as many choices and emotional arcs as any other character would have.” Read more.
TravelAbility Takeaway: Who doesn’t love a good underdog sports movie? Harrelson is convincing in the Tom Hanks “there’s-no-crying-in baseball-role”, but the movie is stolen by the team of actors with intellectual disabilities. They are at once funny and believable. Note: Both the original Spanish film and the American remake draw inspiration from the true story of the Aderes basketball team, a Valencia-based team of players with intellectual disabilities who who win multiple championships in Spain.
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