DYLAN Alcott gets a fair bit of stick from strangers and mates for his ANZ-Fitbit advert during the Australian Open.
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The wheelchair tennis champion admits it was a unique experience seeing himself on television almost every ad break during January, buying lunch with his wrist device in front of a starstruck child.
But it was also something new for Australian TV.
“For one of the biggest brands in Australia to put somebody with a disability in the front of their brand, and not once mention that I was in a wheelchair, or cared that I had a disability, you don’t understand how powerful that is for a lot of people,” Alcott said.
“I had thousands of messages from parents saying that they could never come to terms with their kid having a disability until they saw things like that.
“The reason it means so much to me is I used to say to my parents: ‘Why do I never see anybody like me on TV?’ When I was growing up and getting bullied, I didn’t know anyone with a disability, I didn’t know anyone in a wheelchair, I never saw anyone in a wheelchair, it sucked.
“Hopefully it makes it easier for other people and it becomes the norm so more people get exposed to things like that.”
Alcott was in Bendigo on Thursday to speak at a business lunch at the All Seasons.
Alcott – who is paraplegic after having a tumour removed from around his spinal cord as an infant – detailed his experiences of being bullied as a teenager, tentative mates afraid to talk to him about his disability and the lack of representation for people with disabilities in government and corporations.
He also spoke about his Paralympics gold medal success with the Australian wheelchair basketball team, and his switch to wheelchair tennis where he won four straight Australian Open titles.
His trip to Bendigo was a homecoming of sorts.
Alcott, who grew up in Melbourne, played his first ever competitive wheelchair tennis match in Bendigo as a 10-year-old child, but it wasn’t until the end of his teenage years that he decided to pursue sport at a high level.
While children were relatively accepting of his disability in primary school, it all changed when he entered high school.
The word “cripple” followed him around.
“I also got a new nickname. People started calling me ‘the cripple’ everywhere I went, and I hate that word. It’s got a real negative connotation to it,” Alcott said.
“Words like ‘retard’ and ‘spastic’… those words are really hurtful, and for me, everywhere I went it was ‘the cripple’s here’, ‘the cripple’s here’. Unfortunately for me, I started believing them, and I became really embarrassed about the fact I had a disability.”
As he approached adulthood, he found that his mates would avoid mentioning his disability – to the extent that he was not invited to a party because it was up a few flights of stairs.
Alcott went to the party anyway and realised the fear of talking about disability was mutual. Both his mates and himself were “embarrassed” about it.
“From that day on, I decided to not let my disability get in the way of anything I wanted to do, ever again. It was a real turning point in my life,” he said.
“It pushed me towards my true love, which was playing sport.”
By age 17, he was playing in the gold medal match for the Australian Rollers wheelchair basketball team when they defeated Canada at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics.
He won a world championship and then a silver medal at the 2012 London Paralympics.
After eight months travelling the world, he started his wheelchair tennis career and competed at the 2013 Australian Open as a wildcard. He won the Australian Open from 2015 to 2018, and two more Paralympic gold medals for wheelchair tennis in 2016.
He is now forging a career in broadcast media, hosting Weekend Arvos on Triple J.
Alcott strives to be a positive role model for the four million Australians living with a disability – a role that has been sorely lacking in nation’s public eye.
“I think there is this stigma around disability, that we are broken, less capable, undateable, unemployable, can’t have sex, can’t do anything, can’t have a life,” he said.
“That expectation, or limitations, is what makes people with disabilities’ lives really tough.
“I used to think, ‘why is this? Why can’t I live my life the way I want to live it?’ I realised that there are no positive role models in mainstream media with a disability.”
This has also flowed on to government and corporations.
“I am sick of able-bodied people speaking to other able-bodied people about what people with disabilities actually need,” Alcott said.
“For example, at the state government, the office of disability has like 200 staff, there’s about two with a disability.
“And they make all the policy for people with disabilities. That sucks.”
Of the 28 OECD countries, Australia has the third highest proportion of people with a disability living below the poverty line. The country continually ranks down the bottom in measures to support their rights.
Alcott founded the Dylan Alcott Foundation to give people with a disability greater access to study and sport, and last year launched Get Skilled Access – a training provider giving major business and government greater understanding of the challenges facing people with disabilities.
His organisation is run by people with lived experience of disability – an idea he hopes leads to change in Australia.