Reply With QuoteI'm watching the opening ceremony now... Looking forward to it too!
Really chuffed to get back to the UK in time for the start of the Paralympics.
I reckon it's going to be the best ever and am really looking forward to the next 11 days.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
I'm watching the opening ceremony now... Looking forward to it too!
Taking the family next week. Very excited.
This (and the Olympics) are a credit to the UK IMHO.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
Bu€€er. Currently in the Netherlands and nothing on the 40 Dutch, Belgium or German channels. Sadly I guess these games are only World Famous in the Uk.
Absolutely couldn't agree more!Originally Posted by Chris_in_the_UK
This (and the Olympics) are a credit to the UK IMHO.
Superb, the most positive disability has been portrayed in my life time...just wonderful
Inspirational, every single one of them deserves a gold medal.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
More sport less ads please.
10 minutes presenters rabbiting 2 minutes sport and 5 minutes ads then back to bumbling Jon Snow
Agreed - and Channel 4 have done a very good job of generating some buzz for it - to be honest, never been interested in watching it until now.This (and the Olympics) are a credit to the UK IMHO.
I do wish the bbc was doing the coverage..hardly any sport lots of chatting and ads... And no complete streams so half the sports seem to have no coverage..
Glad I was there yesterday.. To see it for real...
These athletes are just incredible
I cant believe Jody was disqualified, its blatantly obvious his release mech held him back a split second resulting in the incident, I think he should have been a bit more diplomatic in his pursuit of a restart but lets face it the guy was on for a WR and gold so he was bound to be a little pumped up, these athletes are superhumans to do what they do with their disabilities, I cant wait for the road race and cheer on Team GB, and yes its a shame the BBC isnt doing the coverage.
Oh and not a single empty seat
An AWESOME race!!!!!
Well done Ellie.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
Like many others I've paid little attention to this event in the past....I am truly in awe of these athletes and their achievements.
Last edited by TikTokTrev; 2nd September 2012 at 11:14.
Some truley inpirational athletes.
Team gb are going great guns - well done guys!
I do however have to ask what will happen to all C4's newely found disabled presenters after the games?
I hope they're not just put back in the cupboard and wheeled out in another 4 years.....
I see what you did there. ;-) But so do I, they have been a breath of fresh air compared to some of the 'old hands' and deserve to be commentating more often.
As an aside, Claire Balding seems to have had a good Olympics: I've quite warmed to her over the last few weeks as she seems to be able to give good commentary on all the wide range of disciplines she has presented on.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
Any excuse I could EVER come up with for not getting out on my bicycle… INVALID.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
some tickets are still being released daily, so if you are intereesting in going do check the main olympic site,
I got cheap closing ceremony tickets on Friday night, and there are more to come apparently,
The only thing I can't work out is how I'm supposed to get to Westminster on the day (zone 1) to collect the travel passes, given I live 80 miles from London, without having already paid for a travel pass...
I find it utterly digraceful that overseas broadcasters are on the whole ignoring the Paralympics.
Not only are you Johnny Foreigner types being denied a great sporting event but it just goes to show how far disabled people still have to go to be seen and heard!
I'm gutted I couldn't make Sunday night at the athletics due to work but my missus took my mum instead who is still going on about how fantastic it was.
Actually I have been pleasantly surprised at the coverage I can receive in The Middle east. Each night there is a 1 hour catchup and then about 3-4 hours of live aquatics and athletics. There is also a dedicated Parlaympics HD channel on all day transmitting live. It's from the OSN network which is Dubai based across the Middle east.
Some good stuff going on, enjoyed the wheelchair basketball and track stuff. Ellie Simmons 400m battle was fantastic. Crowds seem to have been great with the exception of wheelchair tennis and some of the blind football (impressive hightlights by the way - Brazil were amazing). Pistorius was a shock.
Enjoying the coverage.
Australia are showing 100hours+ too. Seems the US is the high profile NBC broadcaster not really doing much - about 5 hours plus some youtube stuff.
I'm a bit puzzled by Ellie Simmons inclusion TBH.
I admit I am no expert on the categorisations used but when I saw her race on saturday morning she seemed to be up against people who couldn't use their legs and had various other disabilities.
As far as I can see ES is a dwarf and she has all her limbs although they are obviously shorter than normal.
Doesn't really seem fair to me.
Is dwarfism really a disability?
Cheers,
Neil.
Really?
What a strange question...
Why?
As I said before apart from being shorter than usual she has full use of all her limbs which her competitors don't.
Which is why it looks unfair to me.
Cheers,
Neil.
As I see it, she can't compete fairly against 'non-disabled' athletes and so having met the qualification criteria to be eligible for the Paralympics it's then a question of which category she is placed in - S6 in her case - and the powers-that-be made the decision on their own criteria.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
I also don't fully understand why she can't compete with non-disabled athletes, after all nobody else can complete the men's 100M race with only 41 steps as Bolt does, which is due mainly to the length of his leg\stride and as such all the other runners have to move their legs faster to cover the same distance in order to compete with him.
Having long legs isn't classed as a disability. No doubt there are other runners with longer legs than Usain and who could presumably cover the 100m in 41 strides or less - just not as fast as him.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
What is wrong with you all?
Any disabled athlete can compete against able bodied athletes- see Oscar Pistorius making the Olympics.
The problem is they may not make the qualifying times required to firstly, be selected by their own nation as a candidate for entry (given all nations had a max of two athletes per event), and secondly, making the qualifying time for the event itself.
So for example, Ellie Simmonds won the 400m freestyle in 5:19.17, a new world record.
The Olympic qualifying time is 4:09.35 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimmin...400m_freestyle)
Yes I guess that is correct Ralph.
The decision has been made and that is the end of it.
Categorisation is probably always going to be a slightly more difficult subject in the Paralympics, as in the recent Pistorius blade dispute.
Cheers,
Neil.
There is an interesting article on the BBC about this http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/disability-sport/19476943
SWIMMING
What classifications are there? Swimming is one of the few Paralympic sports that combines different types of disability in the same events, meaning Ellie Simmonds, who has dwarfism, can compete in the S6 class with her fellow Briton Natalie Jones, who has cerebral palsy. Swimmers with physical disabilities are categorised from one to 10, the lower the number the more severe the disability. Numbers 11-13 cover visual impairments and 14 is allocated to swimmers with an intellectual disability. The prefix S denotes freestyle, backstroke and butterfly, SB means breaststroke and SM individual medley.
How are they decided? Swimmers are subjected to a "bench test" and a "water test" before being observed during competition. In the bench test, three certified classifiers test the swimmer's every possible range of motion on an athletics training table. In the water, the swimmer will perform all four strokes and a series of other exercises before their classification is determined.
London 2012 controversies: US swimming star Mallory Weggemann raged that she had "lost faith" in the Paralympics system after having her classification altered on the eve of the Games. Weggemann was moved to a category for less severely disabled athletes after evidence was presented to the IPC showing she was not in the correct class.
Weggemann's fellow American Victoria Arlen was initially denied the chance to compete against Ellie Simmonds in London after it was decided her disability was not severe enough, only for the decision to be overturned on appeal.
Agreed; spot on.
The WIS look at the games 2012
Jonnie Peacock: AWESOME!
What a start!
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
Jonnie, Hannah and Dave provided a great spectacle last night!
Some truely awesome people.
Was also pleased to see Alex Zanardi mullering the opposition in the handcycle time trial - the guy is a legend!
Hoping he can do the same in the relay.
Looking forward to the mens 400m with Oscar and hoping the Wier-wolf does the business in the marathon.
I've really enjoyed the paralympics - having spent 2.5 years working on the site I was a bit fed up of all the corporate hype over the main games and was glad to see the back of the place.
I actually look at it when watching feeling proud that I was a small part of it now, which I didn't during the main games.
Properly, properly impressive...
It's even getting good coverage over here (i live in China at the moment) which is quite surprising.
Makes me very proud to be a Brit I have to say.
The women's 4x100m swim: Louise Watkins did a tremendous final leg to get the Silver!
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
That has to be one of the greatest races I've ever seen! What a finish!
Posting Permissions
