The Olympic Ceremony is complete, the athletes are ready to go and the 2012 Paralympics is about to get underway. With early medals available in swimming, cycling, shooting and powerlifting, we'll start seeing gold handed out almost immediately. Team GB have a lot to live up to after the success of the previous few weeks, but equally the momentum in the team hasn't had time to wane just yet. Good luck one and all!
London 2012 Paralympics
Published by Christine Blachford on
A good guide on what not to miss from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/disability-sport/19330470
I'm just watching the Aussie build up to the Opening Ceremony.
I'm assuming in an odd role reversal after the UK had it full of ad breaks that since its on ABC in Australia we won't have any.
oooh Adam Hills is our host, I like him.
They just showed this photo that he tweeted, I think our coverage might be going for the humour angle :D
https://twitter.com/adamhillscomedy/status/240805755161280512
I like your idea of watching the athletes parade but on double speed :)
Mr C would probably call it speed ceremonying!
I have gone up to 30x speed and it still took forever.
I stopped for Team GB and I recognised your flag bearer! I didn't expect that to happen. Who knew I knew any wheelchair tennis players?
Here's my NZ Paralympic facts for 2012:
Our team has 24 athletes which is the smallest in 20 years. Mainly because the Wheel Blacks didn't qualify. Sidenote: I like that our wheelchair rugby team are the Wheel Blacks.
Even with so few people in the team our medal target is 18. I have no idea how we're going to do.
And finally, seven individual able-bodied Olympic sports received more taxpayer funding from High Performance Sport New Zealand during the past four years than the entire Paralympic programme.
I want a speech language interpreter to follow me around full time.
sign language rather
"this ceremony is going long so if you have to go to work now, go to work and stream it"
#mfc
wait... you can't be watching the paralympics too? sidepodcast needs you!
He's hosting a nightly Channel 4 show starting tonight called 'The Last Leg', which for those who don't know, is funny because he only has one leg. He's funny when I've seen him on Mock The Week so hopefully the show will be a good one.
In real time the parade took two hours! I don't know how you can speed it up though, with all the walking sticks and wheelchairs and stuff.
Morning all. What are our viewing options today?
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Haven't a clue, I'm following with BBC Sportsday live text as I haven't found a dedicated one yet.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/19419925
I was confused as to why he was so involved with the Paralympics, then I remembered his foot isn't there. I'm jealous he'll be on your coverage, he did a good job on the ceremony for us.
I am now watching cycling. Mmm, velodrome.
I was looking for one earlier. Bit poor they're not doing it, but different channel I guess. No vested interest.
Who me? I might watch a bit. Not so many viewing options this time though, and it's not the summer break anymore!
I'm really impressed with ABC's coverage, we might be the only country in the world with better FTA coverage of the Paralympics than the actual Olympics.
They're now interviewing the Australian flag bearer.
"How was it?"
"Can I say s*** hot?"
"s*** hot is perfectly acceptable"
ahh, Australian TV.
Turns out C4 have 3 digi-channels (in addition to C4) on TV showing sports. Their online is currently telling me it starts shortly, and looks like a poor-man's version of what the BBC wee able to do (albeit a player that's taken a month to change it's programming.
:) :)
i lost ya for two weeks, i can't lose you for another ;)
will check that out. cheers.
Some world records being set in the veldrome and the pool
listening to the stories of people who get seriously injured and then go on to triumph in the paralympics is so inspiring. I mean its great for the ones who were born with disabilites too, but I feel like if I broke my back I'd probably spend a great deal of time feeling sorry for myself.
this flag bearer guy is nuts, he first took up wheelchair athletics and won olympic medals in the 100m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 5000m and marathon between 1992-2000, then he retired in 2002, then he was like 'i'm bored' and started playing wheelchair rugby and got a medal in that in beijing.
He must have been so fit to be able to win medals over so many different racing distances.
Yeah it'd be a great excuse to stay at home watching lots of films and TV series and moping around, which is what I'd do.
Channel 4 live text http://paralympics.channel4.com/results-schedule/live-blog-columns/day=1/session=1/index.html
tandem bikes!
This may come in handy to work out the classifications!
http://lexi.channel4.com/
theres also a whole bunch of official live stuff on youtube. awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/paralympicsporttv
China gets the first gold, in the shooting
wooohoo, no Aussies in this heat so commentators solely talking about the Kiwi. I like this.
new WR for the Kiwi, apparently shes the favourite. Yay!
I read that as apparently she's my favourite
GB won a silver in the track cycling time trial
Just put the TV on. Notice that the games have to switch to More4 for Hollyoaks :)
Just in time for a LEXI explanation.
LEXI is a really good way to show you how all the different disabilities are actually comparable :)
What a race!
I could listen to Giles talk about sport for hours on end.
He's very good at explaining all these classes.
Gold!
And he just talks soo much sense, and in a way that i just hang on ...
Wheelchair basketball was quite similar to other basketball, in that I was quite interested and wanted to watch but always found my attention drifting. Someone got a foul because he let his chair ram another one.
Just wait till the wheelchair rugby. Vicious
This was quite good, irreverent/funny (Freddie Flintoff being thrown over by a mostly-blind judo player was fun). I felt it could use a few more highlights of the actual sport though, so perhaps they'll learn that over the next few days. Or put more of that in the Clare and Ade show before it instead of lots and lots of studio talking.
Athletics starts tomorrow but I'll be off the grid from mid-morning until I don't know what time, maybe 11 or midnight..
They seem to have bumped Adam Hills tonight, and haven't even put him on one of their extra channels that are only showing the schedule :(
I saw a trailer about an hour ago for a program he is doing tonight
The program that was supposed to start ~25 minutes ago? It seems to have been replaced with the wheelchair basketball (which is on another channel as well).
Exactly that - postponed till the end of the match.
i've haven't caught any coverage yet, but how are c4 comparing to the beeb? i liked the buildup and advertising - are they delivering, or is it "jessica ennis, goodnight" part two.
It's not bad. The presenters (the ones who've come from sports rather than the pros) are doing their best - but it's hard as some of the editing is interesting, cutting away only to cut back - must be tricky to keep on top of. They do a good job of explaining the categories of disability. I think the best way to describe it is BBC-light.
got ya, cheers.
I have tuned in at various points over the last couple of days and every time there seems to be just talking! I think I've only managed to see one single swimming race! Bad timing by me, or lots of talking by them?
I don't think they have many presenting areas in the venues, so it's all being anchored from the studio, hence quite a lot of talking. Giles Long is very interesting to listen to though. I'd say a combo of both, as they do show most of the races. (However, they cut the first half of a longer swimming race so that they could talk more *raised eyebrow*.)
ahh, the comments auto-closed themselves. sorry.
#willfixitintheoffseason
should be okay now. sorry about that.