Disabled National Representatives
Someone asked me last week if the English Bridge Union have a Disabled Team or Pairs set up to represent England in international matches. Being a youngerish player myself and being registered as disabled this interested me. However, looking at all the information available online there is no set up for the disabled.
International events such as The Commonwealth Games, Olympics and the like all have a set up for the disabled, but do we? My personal feeling is that we should do. What do others think?
And the friend of mine was an ex American Serviceman who is a double amputee after stepping on an IED in Helmand. He was interested in maybe an English Team, American Team, Canadian, French and Dutch competition - he wasn’t intending to invite any Russian Team or North Korean Team.
International events such as The Commonwealth Games, Olympics and the like all have a set up for the disabled, but do we? My personal feeling is that we should do. What do others think?
And the friend of mine was an ex American Serviceman who is a double amputee after stepping on an IED in Helmand. He was interested in maybe an English Team, American Team, Canadian, French and Dutch competition - he wasn’t intending to invite any Russian Team or North Korean Team.
Comments
Hi Kato,
The EBU is very concerned to accommodate its disabled members to the fullest extent but it seems to me that bridge is already quite accessible to those with a variety of disabilities. Even those with sight impairment, which is the most obvious thing that might restrict players' ability to play bridge, can often be accommodated by a variety of means.
For example, I wrote an Excel program that reads all the North hands from a Sim Pairs file into a text file so that one of our members who uses braille cards can set them up for himself in advance of a sims event, using text-to-speech software.
Having said that though, I'm sure we would be very happy to support a team of disabled players in any suitable events that they wanted to enter.