I was just watching a cupcake challange on the Food Network & have realized the contest has a reqirement which would make it difficult if not impossible for a disabled contestent to fully compete.

The problem is quite simple: The end of the contest requires moving a decorative piece from their working table to a display table. The idea is that the piece needs to be stable enough to be transported, which I can understand.

What I can't understand is why, when one member of one team pair was injured, was the other team member required to move the piece all by himself. You see, his team member had a back injury before the contest began.

Apparently, from what I could tell by what was said, someone else was not allowed to stand in for the injured team member to assist with the move... To clarify they said "he has one more problem, because of a back injury which occured to his partner before the contest began, he will need to move his piece all by himself."

The words seemingly indicated this was NOT a choice. This would quite litarally make it difficult to impossible for a team to enter where one member, if not both, are disabled. This absolutely appauls me. People who are physically disabled, such as myself, usually want to live as normal lives as possible. I'm fortunate to a degree since I can still walk (and hopefully will be able to do so for many more years). But to be excluded from a cooking competition simply because you aren't capable of lifting 100 lbs. to carry for five seconds all of two feet in distance is a little beyond unreasonable... I would hope that they would allow someone to stand in in place of an injured or disabled contestant. But the use of words by the Food Network seemed to clearly indicate this was not an option...