Paralympic success as a measure of national social and economic development

It could be argued that one possible measure of social and economic success within a particular country is the treatment and social status of minority groups such as people with disabilities. Given the costs of taking part in and achieving success in an elite sports event for athletes with disabilities such as the Paralympic Games it could also be argued that such participation may be an indicator of how well people with disabilities are regarded within the nation that they represent. This paper will attempt to briefly, given the space available, investigate this issue via such data as team size, medal success and GDP per capita for countries winning medals at the Athens Paralympic Games, 2004. It will also attempt to relate this data to other written accounts of the lives of people with disabilities in one particular competing nation.