Once you’re watching the medal ceremonies on the Paralympics, you may discover that a few of the podiums are slightly extra stuffed than others. That’s as a result of for a number of sports activities, the athletes aren’t the one ones up there: Paralympic guides additionally make the rostrum—and obtain medals—in a bunch of occasions.

And for good motive. Guides are sometimes with them each step of the best way, from the lengthy hours put in throughout coaching to the massive day of competitors.

Visually impaired sprinters, for instance, run down the observe tethered to a sighted information who retains them from veering out of their lane or bumping into different athletes. To construct their belief and run in sync, they have to practice for hours collectively every week.

Every blind soccer (a.ok.a. soccer) crew has {a partially} or totally sighted goalkeeper who’s allowed to provide directions to gamers of their one third of the sphere, along with holding the ball out of the online. In the meantime, boccia gamers in some classifications depend on their assistants to place their ramp or different assistive tools, in addition to to place the ball on the ramp (although the athlete pushes it down the ramp with a pointer). And visually impaired cyclists share a tandem bike with their guides. The sighted rider, known as the pilot, sits in entrance and steers, whereas the para-athlete—known as the stoker—gives energy from the again.

Given the time, expertise, and sacrifice it takes to serve in these essential roles, it is sensible that almost all guides and assistants obtain medals if their athletes do. Whereas that’s the case now, it wasn’t all the time that method.

Earlier than the London Paralympics in 2012, solely biking pilots acquired medals. However starting that yr, operating guides and sighted goalkeepers in blind soccer turned eligible for medals too, in keeping with The Impartial. It’s a change the athletes themselves had been advocating for.