Mai-Anh Ngo, sports and equal rights advocate

“A friend of mine came up with a term that best describes me: PRM – person with limited mobility,” Mai-Anh Ngo smiled at the beginning of the interview. “You may not have noticed, but I’m in a wheelchair!” Ngo is a tireless para-athlete and multiple medalist, as well as a lawyer at GREDEG. She focuses on the key factors that prevent people with disabilities from engaging in sporting activities, from a French legal perspective. To find these factors, she delved into the details of the application of disability and sports regulations in the field of para-sports. Indeed, while legal rules are omnipresent in sports – from the rules of the game to access to justice to the organization of the sports world itself – when it comes to para-sports, the law still lags behind. To codify this phenomenon, Ngo relies on the implementation of two principles: accessibility and compensation.

These leverage points are the basis for the law of 11 February 2005 on equal rights and opportunities, participation and citizenship for persons with disabilities, which provides for equal access to sports facilities and activities for persons with all types of disabilities. “It also provided a legal definition of disability for the first time.” Ngo explained.Although it remains pathologically oriented, it introduces an environmental dimension: the cause of the disabling condition is environmental maladaptation.” The lawyers stress that this is a real change in perception. Although accessibility has been a legal requirement since 1975 (in theory, all facilities should be accessible by 2015), the concept of compensation is new, requiring that all additional costs caused by disability be covered by disability compensation (PCH).

This means that people with disabilities can develop a four-year individual plan in cooperation with the Departmental Disability Centres (MDPH in French), which provide them with support in all aspects of daily life. But in Ngo’s opinion, despite the best intentions, the conditions for implementing this provision are not yet met. Especially in the field of para-sports, accessibility needs to be improved and human and technical compensation is still limited. The researcher believes this is mainly due to two reasons: firstly, the competition dimension is relatively new and, secondly, the French legal system still underestimates the specific characteristics of para-sports.

From swimming pools to sports law

Born prematurely with paralysis of her limbs and trunk, Mei-Ann Wu was sent to a sports club for the disabled in 1988, when she was 13, where she was encouraged to try swimming. “At first I wanted to practice kung fu, but they told me it was impossible.” She joked. “That same year, I competed in the French Championships, which were qualifiers for the Paralympics.”

She was so impressed by the quality of the swimmers that she had already begun to imagine herself as a member of the French team: “I immediately set my sights on competing.” Her mother taught her the breaststroke, “Severely disabled athletes like me rarely use this move.” she explains. A year later, she joined the French Paralympic swimming team. Ngo competed in the 1992 Barcelona Paralympic Games and the 1996 Atlanta Paralympic Games, and won three bronze medals at the European Championships and another three at the World Championships.

While in college, she continued to play sports at a national level, albeit on an intermittent basis. “I’ve started writing my dissertation on the quality of processed foods.” She recalls. After devoting ten years to the subject, in 2010 she came up with the idea of ​​linking her life as an athlete (and activist) with her activities as a research engineer. When she proposed to shift the focus of her work to disability issues in the field of sports and accessibility, the management of the laboratory in Nice (south-east France) responded positively. “It’s not only the obvious choice, it’s also a true harmony between the personal and professional.” She added, “Although I worry about being seen as a disabled person working in disability matters.”

Paraperf: Higher, Further, Stronger… and More Disabled Friendly

Since 2020, Ngo has been involved in Paraperf, a project dedicated to the Paralympic Games. Sponsored by the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance (INSEP), the project has a dual mission: to personalize and optimize the development and equipment of athletes with disabilities, and to ensure that the relevant technological and social innovations improve the daily lives of people with disabilities in the long term. These efforts focus on the Paris Paralympic Games: from August 28 to September 8, 2024, more than 4,300 athletes with disabilities (including 1,859 women) will participate in about 549 events involving 22 sports. Paraperf is taking action in three main areas. The first is the use of analytical and personalized decision support tools to maximize the performance trajectory of athletes with disabilities. The second area aims to optimize the combination of athletes and wheelchairs (12 of the 22 Paralympic sports use wheelchairs, 9 of which are being studied as part of the project). The third area, to which Ngo contributes, focuses on the athletes’ preparation and training environment, their psychological condition and well-being, and their socioeconomic background. “Our goal is to better understand the factors that contribute to top performance.” The lawyer explained, “More broadly, creating a good environment for the preparations for the Paralympics.”

Ngo, in collaboration with researchers in the fields of sociology, psychology and law, set out to assess the integration of Paralympic parameters with sport rules and the integration of sport specificities with disability law, based mainly on questionnaires and interviews with professionals (athletes with disabilities, staff, etc.). “The Paralympic model replicates the Olympic model, but it doesn’t really take into account the characteristics of the Olympic Games.” She noted that she began to focus on participants not mentioned in the legal norms, such as assistants and guides, able-bodied athletes accompanying Paralympic participants. She also touched on the issue of human compensation, especially the issue of treating these assistants as high-level athletes. “We realized some of the tools were not appropriate,” She explains that, for example, in a long-distance race, participants only need to indicate that they are blind to register. “This is not just a matter of detail, it is at odds with the reality of disability sport.” Ngo said. “If they are not recognised as high-level athletes, then instructors do not have the time to train, either with disabled athletes or individually.” In response, she developed a tool for the FFH French Para-Sports Federation to promote the status of Para-Sports pairs.

Is it time to change the rules of sports?

Ngo worked with the Paraperf Medical Working Group and the Institute for Connected Disability Sports Health (ISPC) to examine regulated medical tests for athletes with disabilities, which were also “inadequate” according to his team’s conclusions. “It may seem obvious, but one of our main findings is that taking disability into account, whether it is innate or acquired, must be the first step in medical monitoring, even before sport performance.” Stability in precision sports, maneuverability in football or basketball, problems related to friction or falls: her work shows that athletes with disabilities cannot be separated from their equipment, because every calibration of the equipment is important.

Recently, Ngo has also been working on e-sports, especially getting disabled players to participate in the game. She gave an example: “I contacted the French Sports and Olympic Committee (CNOSF) and asked them, ‘What would you do if a disabled video game player won the Fortnite World Championship and sued for equality violations?’ When it comes to issues related to people in wheelchairs, I say without hesitation, ‘It won’t work.’ Today, we are working with CNOSF on this issue. The advantage of this law is that if we succeed in changing it, maybe not today, but in the next few years, we can improve the entire system.”

Paris 2024: a gateway to a more accessible France?

In 2020, Mai-Anh Ngo started learning karate. In 2022, she returned to the podium as the French national karate champion. “My winning the Super Karate Kata Championship was the culmination of an adventure that began 40 years ago.” she recalled. “It’s amazing! Sport has greatly broadened my horizons in life, and now I want to offer this possibility to others.”

Beyond performance standards, researchers hope that media coverage of France’s first-ever Summer Paralympic Games and the Paralympic Torch Relay, which involves about 1,000 torchbearers, will promote issues of inclusion and convey a positive, vibrant image of people with disabilities. “The torch is also a symbol of strength and solidarity and in this spirit I will carry the torch in Antibes (southeast France) on August 25.” she added. Ngo hopes the Paris Olympics will lead to a real legal and social shift toward what she calls “disability politics.”All laws need to take disability seriously.” She insisted that “Provisions for people with disabilities have always been incorporated since the very first draft.”

Ngo, who is also a member of the CNCPH National Disability Advisory Committee, lamented the apparent lack of awareness of disability, especially accessibility, among the general public in France. Scooters are parked on sidewalks, trash cans block roads, and flower pots are piled up in front of shops… “It’s situations like these, and their daily repetition, that make it even more difficult for people to live with disability,” She commented. “You have to admit that just trying to live a normal life takes a lot of energy.” She also lamented the tendency for people to assume that accessibility is only important to a minority of wheelchair users. “Yet it’s likely to impact everyone’s life at some point.”She believes this cultural deficit exacerbates the isolation that people with disabilities feel. “One European study estimated that the additional cost of incorporating accessibility into building construction would be 1% of the total budget.” She said finally. “At this price, all new construction should be accessible.” ♦