Accessible sports enrich lives across the nation and bring international medals home.
The atmosphere at the city-run New Taipei Special School’s student activity center one spring Saturday was as lively as any weekday. Dozens of people were at the monthly training for boccia, an offshoot of the precision ball sport bocce that was developed for people with physical disabilities, with parents, friends and coaches whooping in support of each point scored. “The movements involved in accurately throwing a ball are challenging for everyone,” said Sweenie Lin (林恬), founder and secretary general of Boccia Taiwan Sports Federation (BTSF). In Taiwan it was first played by people with cerebral palsy but is now practiced by athletes with a variety of motor skill challenges. In 1984 it became a Paralympic sport, and as of 2020, 75 national boccia groups have joined one or more of the international organizations available, chief among them the Boccia International Sports Federation (BISF). BTSF began promoting the sport in 2014 in northern Taiwan through regular training sessions in New Taipei City, encouraging participation by providing accessible transport services. Over the past three years it has extended a teaching program throughout the country with support from the corporate and government sectors.
Open Access
“Sports equality is a major government policy,” said Chang Yung-kuang (張永光), chief of the Special Physical Education Counseling Section (SPECS) under the Sports Administration’s (SA) Sports for All Division. Commitment to the policy, which aims to implement the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, is evidenced by planned upgrades in government units tasked with improving access to sports for disabled people throughout the country. It is estimated that 1.2 million, or 5.1 percent of the country’s total population, live with some form of physical challenge. Later this year the SA will be upgraded to an independent ministry, which will include a Department of Adaptive Sports drawn from and extending SPECS workstreams. Adaptive sports, also known as parasports, are competitive or recreational sports with rules and equipment modifications that allow anyone to participate, especially those with physical or intellectual challenges.
Much is being done to make it easier for physically disabled people to take up sports. In 2020 the SA launched Loving Sports Without Barriers, an initiative that brings coaches specializing in adaptive physical activity to sessions at municipal sports centers and stadiums. The local governments of eight cities and counties around Taiwan worked with the SA on the project from its inception, and the number had increased to 20 as of 2024. With basketball being one of the most popular school athletic activities, the sport was a prime target for the SA’s 2023 Friendly Hoops initiative, a program that encourages public schools to reserve one out of every six hoops for physically challenged students, in addition to funding the installation of new hoops. The SA has designated 30 schools over the past three years as inclusive physical education facilities for their work designing and developing accessible sports like boccia and wheelchair table tennis. Starting last year the central government began to consider the presence of inclusive physical education at public schools when allocating funding to local authorities.
Golden Opportunity
The development of inclusive sports initiatives in schools and competitive sports access for physically challenged athletes lead directly to more participation in competitive international events. The Chinese Taipei Paralympic Committee (CTPC) is the National Paralympic Committee (NPC) for Taiwan under the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). Mu Ming-chu (穆閩珠), president of the CTPC, emphasized that athletes with disabilities put Taiwan on the world stage as far back as 1996, when Lee Ching-chung (李青忠) won the first Paralympic Games gold medal in the category of judo for 60-kilogram visually impaired competitors. Mu noted sports for physically challenged athletes are generally categorized into four types, three of which—visual, intellectual and physical disability—are conditions for participation in the world’s most important and comprehensive sports event for disabled athletes, the Paralympics. In addition, the Special Olympics and Deaflympics are exclusively for athletes with intellectual disabilities and hearing loss, respectively. Taiwan has actively taken part in these three international sports events, and in 2009 Taipei became the first Asian city to host the Summer Deaflympics.
Mu said that previously the CTPC, which is largely funded by the SA, prepared for the Paralympics and Asian Para Games by recruiting athletes through recommendations by schools or from among the winners of domestic competitions such as the biennial National Disabled Games and providing the athletes short-term training sessions before sending them abroad to compete. Starting in 2023 it implemented systematic long-term training of talented individuals, matching athletes with coaches and sparring partners and paying them during training. As with other athletes, the government offers financial awards to winners of major international competitions.
Last year athletes in training for the Paralympic Games were granted access to the National Sports Training Center (NSTC) in the southern city of Kaohsiung after inspections and renovations of the center were conducted to optimize accessibility. Approximately 60 athletes, coaches and sparring partners trained for the Paris Paralympic Games at the facility, which offers accommodation, sports nutritionists and state-of-the-art training equipment. Xiao Xiang-wen (蕭翔文), who became a taekwondo athlete following a 2020 car accident that left his whole right arm paralyzed, trains most of the year at National Chung Cheng University in the southern county of Chiayi, where he is a sports major. In 2022 he won a gold medal at the Asian Para Games in Hangzhou, China, and last year the 26-year-old spent nearly two months at the NSTC training for the 2024 Paralympic Games. Xiao won bronze in the men’s 58-kilogram division, which was one of five medals for Taiwan.
“I was more focused on training when I was at the center since I didn’t have to spend time making meals or shopping for food,” Xiao said. Wu Yen-ni (吳燕妮), who has trained the athlete since his first year at the university, is also full of praise for the NSTC’s move to accessibility, which she sees as a major step toward sports equality. “The availability of sports science services is really important to elite athletes. The training center makes it easier to request a biochemistry test whenever you need it during training to fine-tune workouts and improve performance.”
Global Connections
As Taiwan devotes more resources to developing an accessible sports environment, adaptive sports promoters like BTSF are gaining international recognition. In 2018 the federation organized the Chinese Taipei Boccia Regional Open, Taiwan’s first such international competition. The officially recognized event in New Taipei attracted over 80 athletes from 10 countries and territories across the Asia-Pacific. It was a valuable opportunity for Taiwan and regional neighbors to exchange best practices on training and raising awareness of the sport, said BTSF’s Lin. Since the event, BTSF’s international exchanges have picked up pace, especially with South Korean and Japanese counterparts.
Taiwan is committed to playing an active role in IPC and its regional organization, the Asian Paralympic Committee (APC). “With 183 NPC members, IPC operates on a scale comparable to that of the United Nations. As a full member in such an international organization, a status rarely enjoyed by Taiwan, we should cherish any opportunity to make contributions to it,” said Mu. To demonstrate its willingness to promote disabled sports globally, Taiwan successfully made a bid to host the IPC General Assembly in 2021 for the first time, and Mu addressed attendees from over 180 countries online.
In 2023 Mu was elected chair of the APC's Women in Sports Committee, which protects and promotes the rights of female athletes with disabilities. “Holding a leadership position at the organization allows us to make constructive contributions to the global development of adaptive sports,” Mu said. “What Taiwan is doing to advance equality in both the recreational and professional spheres makes a difference in the perception of the country on the world stage.”
Write to Oscar Chung at mhchung@mofa.gov.tw