Ahead of the Paralympic Games in Paris, a new Apple video called ‘”The Relay” shows athletes with and without disabilities training and then competing together in a series of events. Each competitor shows the same drive, dedication and spirit — all with the help of Apple gear, of course.
“Apple products are designed for every athlete,” reads the video tagline. “And every body.”
Apple video ‘The Relay’ celebrates adaptive and non-disabled athletes alike, along with Apple products
The new video follows two recent controversial ones from Apple. So you have to wonder if this one will raise any ire, particularly since it deals with a potentially sensitive topic in depicting disabled, or adaptive, athletes. Apple debuted its “Crush!” ad for iPad Pro 4 at the Let Loose event, showing a giant track compactor crushing a mountain of creative tools that iPad Pro can replace. But creatives saw it as Apple using technology to crush the creative spirit, so the iPhone giant felt forced to apologize. Then Apple ended up yanking its Underdogs video set in Thailand after complaints erupted over its “tone-deaf” depiction of the country.
‘The Relay” video, running at about 3 minutes and 45 seconds, opens with various athletes starting their days with breakfast and a training regimen, emphasizing how they all train and sweat the same way. And naturally, they also track their sleep with the Fitness app on iPhone and set training goals on their Apples Watches, to name a couple of examples shown.
Team Black versus Team White
The ad imagines some of the athletes are getting ready for a big relay race between two teams, each a mix of athletes with and without disabilities. One team is dressed all in white and the other in black.
Then “Race Day” brings a relay race in four stages: 100-meter sprint on a track, 500-meter cycle in the velodrome, 50-meter freestyle swim and finally a 400-meter finale back on the track. In each leg — and this is big part of the piece’s theme of equality — an adaptive disabled athlete is pitted against a non-disabled athlete.
Apple takes care to show close and mixed results not necessarily favoring adaptive or non-disabled participants. For the record, in leg 1, a runner with prosthetic legs can’t quite overtake a non-disabled runner. In leg 2, a non-disabled cycles overtakes a cyclist with prosthetic arm. Leg 3 shows a blind swimmer edging out a sighted swimmer. In leg 4, a wheelchair racer rolls to a photo finish with a runner, but her front wheel appears to cross the line first.
Watch Apple’s The Relay Paralympics video
You can read more on Apple’s accessibility website. The Paralympic Games in Paris run Wednesday, August 28, through Sunday, September 8.
