WHEN THE flame was extinguished in the Olympic Stadium in London on Sunday it brought to an end a Paralympics that has set a new benchmark for the games. Over the previous 12 days the best Paralympian athletes in the world provided truly captivating sport that matched the Olympics for extraordinary feats of excellence and often surpassed it for inspirational storylines.
A global audience sated by a magnificent Olympics could hardly have expected the Paralympics to deliver a similar feast of sport. But right from the outset the athletes set new standards, breaking records and introducing wildly enthusiastic crowds to new sports that were as competitive as they were compelling.
Perceptions about the Paralympics have been changed by the past fortnight in London. Disabled sportsmen and women have always wanted to be accepted on their own terms, citing their remarkable skills and arduous training regimes as evidence of how far their sports have progressed. Often their preparation is more scientific than that of their able-bodied counterparts. All they needed was the right stage to showcase their sports and exceptional abilities.
Since the Paralympics started in 1960 that battle for recognition has been a very uneven match. Following in the immediate slipstream of the Olympics has been as much a handicap as a blessing. The oxygen of global sport is media coverage and the Paralympics has often suffered in that regard with TV exposure of the games confined to late-night highlights programmes.
Although paralympic sport advanced at the Athens and Beijing games of 2004 and 2008, its profile still needed a significant push. The impact of an exceptional promotional campaign on Channel 4 was backed by the public buying into Paralympic sports with the same enthusiasm they showed for the Olympics. That engagement by the public – 2.4 million tickets were sold – plus high-quality live TV coverage allowed the paralympic movement to display its sports like never before.
For Team Ireland, London will go down as the most successful Paralympics ever. The remarkable medal haul – 16 in all – put the Irish team in the top 20 of the 146 competing countries and vindicated the money spent by the Irish Sports Council on paralympic sports. London wanted a legacy from a remarkable summer of sport in the British capital. It doesn’t need to look much further than the Paralympics.