A South Park Personality Candice Cable
South Park resident Candice Cable is a nine-time Paralympian. She is the first woman to medal in both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. In addition, she is a six-time winner of the Boston Marathon women’s division and winner of the first four Los Angeles Marathons. That’s quite a history of accomplishment – tied closely to an inspiring life.
A Southern California girl from the beginning, Candice was born and raised in West Covina and enjoyed an idyllic childhood filled with hiking and outdoor activities. Upon graduation from high school, she moved to the beach and became an enthusiastic member of the beach/surfing culture for a short time until finding employment in the Tahoe/Truckee area. Here she discovered skiing and became deeply involved and excelled in all forms of skiing, including Downhill, Cross Country, and Biathlon.
In 1975 a life changing event occurred when she was involved in an automobile accident and found herself facing life in a wheelchair. A period of adaptation and personal challenges followed, but new direction came when she became a student at California State University, Long Beach. Through the Disabled Student Services Program, she found support and direction from other disabled students and became deeply involved in wheelchair racing, - a sport in which she soon excelled. The following 25 years of dedication to and accomplishment in Paralympic sports has resulted in the achievement of an incredible championship record from her base in the Tahoe/Truckee area.
Finally, in 2014, she started to “feel her mortality” and decided to retire from active sports to dedicate herself and her experience to promoting Paralympic programs and ideals. A move to Los Angeles in the early days of our city’s bid for the 2024 (then 2028) Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games was a natural choice. When she found an apartment at Olympic and Hope in South Park, she felt like she had experienced divine intervention. She has been a South Park resident ever since!
Her position with the Athlete Advisory Council for the US Olympic and Paralympic National Governing Committee garnered her invitation to the unveiling of the logo for the LA 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. She found herself marveling at the fact that even though the International Olympic Committee has been intellectually and contractually joined with the Paralympic Committee for many years, there was no mention of the Paralympic Games in the logo or in the accompanying marketing presentation! She argued that the Olympic Games must be considered the Olympic and Paralympic Games, not just the Olympic Games. The Paralympic Games were obviously being unintentionally ignored in their promotions and purged from the thought process. Seeing this had to change, she pressed for and received a job and a voice on the Olympic/Paralympic Bid Committee and fought hard for active inclusion of the Paralympic side of the bid. Her efforts were successful in elevating the understanding of the importance of disabled sports to the Olympic concept and resulted in working it deep into the fabric of the coming 2028 games.
With the planning process for the Games currently well underway, Candice’s focus has become two-fold: She continues to promote the games – both Olympic and Paralympic - and in addition has centered on redirecting and dismantling commonly accepted ideas about disadvantaged people. She feels there exists a concept of “ableism”, which is closely associated with racism, and dictates disabled people are less valuable and less respected than others and that some bodies are more important than other bodies. The result is disabled people often feel “erased and invisible” and less important than everyone else in society. She firmly believes that instead, it is the concept of “ableism” that must be erased in the minds of those who are not disabled. To do this, we must concentrate on improving the day-to-day existence of disabled people through infrastructure improvements and education as well as encouraging inclusion in all forms of physical and social performance. During the interview she said “I feel really grateful and glad for having started using a wheelchair for mobility as it has elevated my understanding of our connectiveness. Everywhere I go I see examples of where the needs of disabled people have not been considered. People with disabilities do not have a lot of opportunities for experience. I want the world to work for everyone.” She has many ideas about how South Park can be improved to better accommodate disabled people, especially with the coming Olympic/Paralympic Games in 2028 and stresses that we all must work hard into the future for a legacy of understanding and inclusiveness of disabled people. You will see more on her thoughts in coming issues of Scene.
My brief meeting with Candice was inspiring and stimulating and I was impressed with her positive outlook and her roadmap for the future. She loves living in South Park and we are lucky to have her as a neighbor!
By John Nilsson