To help families 9000km away feel closer to their athletes, long-time Paralympics NZ head Fiona Allan has taken on a personal mission at the Tokyo Games.
Fiona Allan knows she'll feel there's something missing as she sits in the stands at the many venues of the Paralympic Games in Tokyo.
This will be the seventh Paralympic Games she’s been to since 2008 – both summer and winter – and it’s always been part of Allan’s experience to keep an eye on the families of the New Zealand team's athletes.
“It’s usually me sitting in the stands with the Pascoes or the Leslies, making sure the families get the best seats in the front row,” says Allan, the leader of the Paralympic movement in New Zealand.
Where the Olympics in Tokyo allowed a smattering of local spectators at some events, more stringent rules have been brought in for the 12-day Paralympics as the Covid numbers continue to rise in the city. No crowds – except for some schoolkids.
So Allan will do her best to make the families of the 29 Kiwi Paralympians feel included, by writing to them each day.
Over her 14 years as chief executive of Paralympics New Zealand, Allan has come to know the Paralympian families like her own (she's a mother of two children, aged seven and eight).
And she’s mindful that 18 members of the New Zealand team will compete at their first Paralympic Games, without their families witnessing it from the stands. And if the lockdown back at home continues, the families won't be able to gather for 'Paralympic parties'.
Allan’s daily missive won’t only be to keep them in touch with all that’s going on behind the scenes. It will also serve as an assurance to the families that their athletes are doing okay in these strange and challenging times.
“We are concerned about the rising number of Covid cases in Japan,” says Allan, who arrived in Tokyo in a party of 37 on Thursday night, including nine-time gold medallist swimmer, Sophie Pascoe. “But because of the bubbles we’ve created, and our protocols being above and beyond what’s in the playbooks the International Paralympic Committee [IPC] have put out, that should stand us in really good stead.”
They'll stick to the same basics tested at the Olympics - mask wearing, social distancing, and handwashing and sanitising. But there will be some unique differences with the Paralympic Games.
Like fingerprinting at the airport, as the team’s chef de mission, Disability Rights Commissioner, Paula Tesoriero discovered when she arrived in Tokyo ahead of the athletes.
“She doesn’t have a forefinger, so she wasn’t able to do it,” Allan says. “There will be a number of athletes coming through who don’t have fingers, so it’s up to the organising committee to be adaptable.”
A member of the New Zealand team has a hearing impairment, and of course it’s impossible to lipread people wearing masks. So the team have been given transparent masks.
Buses have had seats removed since the Olympics to make sure they are all wheelchair accessible. And hand hygiene becomes even more vigilant with wheelchair users – as their wheels can pick up high numbers of bacteria.
But Allan knows the Kiwi Paralympians are already champions at adapting.
“Our athletes have already overcome a number of challenges, and through that, they have more of an appreciation of having to do things differently and adapting,” she says. “There’s a sense of resilience and a need to be more determined.”
Allan says she's learned a lot from them. “Our athletes have taught me to never give up. I’ve embarked on my own half marathons because of the inspiration they’ve given me. If they can do it, I can do it too,” she says.
“They’ve made me appreciate the ability to support others through my role as an administrator, which I still really enjoy. It’s certainly a motivating factor, having been at Paralympics NZ for a considerable length of time.”
She’s prepared to be brought to tears countless times during these Games. She still remembers the first time – when Tesoriero won gold on the cycling track at the 2008 Beijing Games – crying as the New Zealand flag rose.
“Emotion is the captivating thing around the Paralympics. And the spirit of the Paralympic movement is addictive.” Once you’re in it, it’s hard to leave, Allan admits.
Allan is an adopted Kiwi. She grew up in the United Kingdom, and represented Scotland in heptathlon.
During her competitive years she trained alongside Paralympians and Special Olympians. “I was part of a very inclusive environment,” she says.
She studied sports science in her hometown, at Nottingham Trent University - where one of her lecturers happened to be blind swimmer Tim Reddish, a three Paralympian and five-time Paralympic medallist. He later became chair of the British Paralympic Association and is now on the IPC alongside Kiwi Paralympics legend, Duane Kale.
Reddish was a catalyst in Allan’s interest in disability sport. She then won a global scholarship to study for six months in Melbourne, choosing to focus on adaptive education.
“Every week, I’d support a young girl who was a little person to be fully included in her school PE sessions,” Allan says. “I’d wanted to be a PE teacher growing up, so that was a memorable moment for me.”
After six years in Australia - where she worked on a government programme, Access for All Abilities, providing sport and art opportunities for disabled people - she moved across the Tasman with her Kiwi partner at the time. She found another job she loved, working across Auckland as a sport opportunity advisor with the Halberg Foundation.
In 2007, she joined Paralympics NZ as operations manager, then applied for the vacant CEO role. “I remember it was quite an intense interview process," she laughs. "But it gave me a real hunger to lead this organisation, and I’ve never looked back. I’ve grown a lot within the role and when I look back, I’m delighted by the increased profile the organisation has now.”
You only have to look at the medal tables from past Paralympic Games to see how far New Zealand’s performances have come in Allan's time. Back in 2008, New Zealand was 24th on the medal table; by Rio 2016, we were 13th. At the last two Paralympics, the team topped the world for medals per capita.
There’s been a similar climb up the Winter Paralympic rankings – from 11th to sixth in the eight years to the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.
But Allan is careful not to predict medal hauls ahead of Tokyo. “I don’t speak about medal delivery. I think there’s sufficient pressure that athletes put on themselves with regards to the goals they wish to obtain,” she says.
“Our goals are to provide an opportunity for our Para athletes – who become Paralympians – to thrive and support them to do so.”
The number of female athletes has increased too – up almost 40 percent since Beijing. Of the 29 athletes in the team in Tokyo, 13 are women (eight of the men are in the Wheel Blacks, who are back in the Paralympic Games for the first time in 13 years).
Allan is also encouraged by the growing number of women among the team’s support staff – 14 of the 37 are female this time.
That includes an Olympic legend. Dame Valerie Adams, who won her fourth Olympic shot put medal in Tokyo less than three weeks ago, has stayed on to help coach her sister, Lisa, who will become a Paralympian in shot put (right now training in the Japanese city of Saga, in Adams' post below)
But the biggest changes Allan has witnessed – and been a driving force behind – are the investment in Para sport, and the way people think about disability.
Allan has been influential in increasing the coverage of Paralympic Games, pushing for the Games to be shown on free-to-air television. In 2016, 2.2 million New Zealanders tuned in. This time, live coverage will be on TVNZ Duke.
“More media coverage exposes people to what disabled people can achieve. It either inspires an individual with a disability to say ‘They’re just like me, I could possibly do that too’. But it also shows the wider public what’s possible. And also hopefully shifting perceptions around what disabled people can achieve.
In 2015, Paralympics NZ made “a very ambitious decision” to appoint a commercial manager. (The first was Rachael Froggatt, now CEO of Women in Sport Aotearoa).
“That was a big shift for us, not only to get increased investment before Rio but it also cast a wider net for our Paralympic family,” Allen says. “We had a new team of people working alongside us as part of our vision to transform lives through Para sport.”
As of three years ago, the government’s performance enhancement grants were made the same for Paralympians and Olympics.
These Paralympics will provide a new challenge for Allan. It’s the longest time she will have been away from her son and daughter, back at home with her partner.
But she has promised, no matter what’s going on in Tokyo, she’ll watch her daughter’s cross-country race back in Auckland (Covid levels permitting) via video call.
