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Very nice to see the Olympics Fever has turned into the Paralympic Fever in China. Despite the continuous bashing from people who have never been to China, China has done her best to hose these games.

I am really looking forward to the Paralympic Games and I don't hink they have anything to porve but to go out and do their best-they can take thier inspiration from Team GB but most importantly from themselves for reaching international competing standard even with a disability.
I will be cheering you all on just as much as I did with Team GB-GOOD LUCK everyone!

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i wish all the very best to all the participants in these games. however, with the greatest will in the world. it would not be as spectacular as the able bodied olympics. we need to promote the image of disabled athletes. the only way to do this would be to run the competetion side by side the main one. they deserve equal respect.

Good to see the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ actually caring about the Paralympics.
2004 coverage was non-exsistent so for them to cover the 2008 Paralympics does show the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ care!

I can't wait to be out there. Leaving on Thursday to support my brother and the rest of the team. Ooooooooooooo!

the paraolympians dont get any respect. if they did their events would run alongside the normal athletes. this is like some second class competition going on after everyone else has forgotton about the real olympics.

I am glad the Paralympics are on and hope the British Team does well. My only Critism is of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s coverage. My view is that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ are biased toward able body Sports Events. Where as we had coverage of the "normal" Olympics 24/7 there is only a couple of hours here and there unless you have interactive or Internet access. It would be great to see more sports on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ that are not just for the able bodied. Good Luck Team GB.

See the Ability not the Disabilty

Can't wait - come on Jody!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While it might be a nice idea for the paralympics to be held at the same time as the Olympics, it's completely impractical - the Olympic programme is as crowded as it can possibly get, and trying to merge the two woudl just mean that the Paralympics would get less coverage than they will do with the current situation.

Merging the two games is impractical, there would just be too many events and teams would have to be there for twice as long, leadign to big problems with funding and work release for what are still on the whole amateur athletes and coaches.

However I believe that the Paralympics should be held first, that way they can benefit from the anticipation of the olympics to follow. The current way is very much seen as an afterthought.

Also the Beeb should be looking to cover every british performance at the games, not just with a 10 second highlight clip but the full works.

What's more they should do more to get things onto iPlayer. Frankly I was disgusted that I could not watch the shooting finals online (or at all if I didnt have digital TV). I could not watch the 0430 final for the mens 50m prone becaue of work commitments so was looking forward to the promised online repeat of the events. This did not happen.

It dissapoints me greatly that they 'big' events were all on iPlayer and all on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ web site to be watched and rewatched as much as liked despite being repeated around 400 times on TV as well, while these other events were only ever seen once. Surely the iPlayer media should have been invented to allow for better coverage of these events, not just for further over-saturation of the same things that are repeated on TV every 30 mintues.

I agree holding the Paralympics first would certainly boost their profile - but would it damage the profile of the Olympics?


I also think there is a danger of getting too PC about these things. The Paralympics may be the pinnacle of ("insert politically correct phrase here") sport, but they will never capture the nations imagination in the way the Olympics too - and it's a shame the official Olympic parade has been delayed so long to accommodate the Paralympians, especially as just a couple of weeks on the Olympic euphoria has well and truly died down.

Yet of course on the other hand the Paralympians do more than deserve their place on that slow moving bus through the packed streets of London, but hey - they can do that any day! (Boom Boom!!)


What Britain really needs though is a new Paralympic star to capture the headlines in the way Tanni Grey did for over a decade, especially in the run up to 2012. Danny Crates is probably the only name I really recognise there, and compared to Tanni Grey at the height of her career he is just a mere speckle of star dust.


As for the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ coverage - it's probably about right and a massive improvement on as little as eight years ago where I think it got barely more than a round up in Sunday Grandstand. One thing I would say though is replay the live coverage in the evening, along with hourly replays of the highlights programme, on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳i.

Please don't tell me it's going to be as bad as the actual olympics which were given more coverage than the opening week of the Football League season and treated on Five Live like they were more important than any news item. I remember a row about diving taking up lots of airtime. When else would that happen? Send all the reporters you have in Baijing back to the UK to report on football matches on a Saturday where the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has no reporters, such as matches in League 1 and League 2. More British people care about them than care about the paralympics or olympics.

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'the paraolympians dont get any respect. if they did their events would run alongside the normal athletes. this is like some second class competition going on after everyone else has forgotton about the real olympics.'

Sorry to rain on your parade but the fact that there is even a Paralympic games in the first place shows how far the world has come in respecting the acheivements of athletes with disabilities. The fact that they have stand alone competition after the olympic games is also something to celebrate. You can't have your cake and eat it.

Further to my last post, there is an online petition for more paralympic TV coverage with 8500 signatures already. It takes all of 20 seconds to complete so please add your support to the petition. Here is the link:

I am enjoying the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s coverage of the Paralympics both on the website and the television and definitely think it has a higher profile than in the past.

However, a simple yet seemingly overlooked act that could back the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s claims of enthusiasm for and dedicated broadcasting of the Paralympics is to move the link to the top spot on the Sports home page. We all enjoyed the Olympics but they are now sadly over. The Paralympics is the current major sporting event and should be given the same 'Pride of Place' priority as the Olympics. This would raise the profile of the games and sports by getting more casual browsers interested and could also lead to higher viewing figures and so greater television coverage for 2012.

Best of luck to all the GB athletes!

I so ejoyed so much of the Olympics and was in awe of the effort and medals shown. So why have you all gone so quiet over the paraolympics when we are continuing to produce medals so brilliantly?

I am thrilled for Murray, mildly interested in Keegan's situation, but they are not actually winners are they? Yet we have medals for cycling, swimming and athletics already and they dont even get a mention on Radio 4's Today's Sports report. Likewise UK won 1st, 2nd and 3rd at the Burghley Horse Trials onSunday. Richard Meade was mentioned on Saturday, but not once he had won ??

I have actually enrolled on this blogging lark with the sole intention of saying how embarassed I am at the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s poor respnse to these international events in which we are so well represented AND doing so well.

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Why has there been no national coverage of the special olympics? I have never so much as heard them mentioned on radio or tv and have asked neighbours and friends who have not heard of it either.Surely those who are learning disabled deserve as much recognition for their achievements as those who have a physical disabliliy?