That Paralympic Blog

Previous blog posts

• Has the Paralympics changed your attitude towards disabled people?

  September 8, 2012

  New research published today suggests 65% of people that watched coverage of the London 2012 Paralympic Games feel it  has had a favourable impact on their perceptions towards people with disabilities. But has it changed your opinion? This evening on Channel 4 News I locked horns over the issue with disability activist and wannabe MP [...]

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• How much is Jonnie Peacock worth?

  September 7, 2012

  Last night 6.3 million Britons tuned in to see GB’s Jonnie Peacock become the T44 100m champion. Seconds after his gold medal winning sprint, his name was being tweeted at a rate of 1,000 tweets per minute. GB has had famous Paralympic athletes before like Tanni Grey-Thompson, Ade Adepitan and Ellie Simmonds – but the [...]

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• The wheelchair rugby numbers game

  September 5, 2012

  Meet Aaron Phipps. He has no fingers, one thumb and no legs below the knee – and he’s GB’s chief goal scorer at London 2012. Three years ago, Phipps picked up a wheelchair rugby ball for the first time. Today he played his first ever competitive match at a Paralympic Games. Wheelchair rugby was originally [...]

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• Sophie Christiansen’s Big Musical Gamble

  September 4, 2012

  For the last year ParalympicsGB dressage rider Sophie Christiansen has been agonising over the soundtrack to her Ia Freestyle test event to be performed at the London 2012 Paralympic Games. Early versions of the music – specially arranged by session guitarist and composer Owen Gurry – were knocked back by officials who felt the music [...]

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• Why are GB’s Paralympic swimmers so much better than the Olympic ones?

  September 3, 2012

  For the last five days the ParalympicsGB swimming team have been cleaning up in the Aquatics Centre at the Olympic Park. Ellie Simmonds alone has won two gold medals and smashed a world record. It’s a far cry from the GB Olympic team who now face funding cuts after a disappointing performance earlier this summer. [...]

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• Does ‘Bladegate’ tarnish ‘Brand Pistorius’?

  Oscar Pistorius has been the poster boy of the Paralympic Games for years. Last night in the Olympic Stadium, he lost his T44 200m crown in a shock defeat to Brazil’s Alan Oliveira. Straight after the race in an interview with Channel 4’s Sonja McLaughlan he said: “We are not running in a fair race [...]

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• What’s next for Will Bayley?

  September 2, 2012

  Table tennis whizz Will Bayley looked distraught this afternoon on winning ParalympicsGB’s first table tennis medal since Atlanta 1996. Losing 3 sets to 1 to long standing rival Jochen Wollmert from Germany, the normally cheeky chappie fell to the ground in tears and appeared visibly upset in subsequent interviews. Since joining the ParalympicsGB table tennis [...]

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• Sitting Volleyball Vice-Captain Anton Raimondo is ‘proud’ to be a ‘Plastic Brit’

  Fresh from their historic straight sets victory over Morocco today, South African born ParalympicsGB sitting volleyball vice-captain Anton Raimondo has declared he is proud to compete on behalf of Great Britain. At the Olympics, ‘Plastic Brit’ was bandied about by the press as a derisory term, but Raimondo embraced the phrase, saying: “There’s something special [...]

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• Is it OK to laugh at the Paralympics?

  September 1, 2012

  Telling jokes about the Paralympics is a risky business, but ask a Paralympian whether or not they think the Paralympics should be joked about and the answer is almost unanimously ‘Yes’. “My friends are always asking if I’ve tried any other sports and obviously I’m not very good at the hurdles,” chuckles the ParalympicsGB Wheelchair [...]

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