Once again the British athletes are doing well. The 13 year old who won gold and cried and laughed as she was interviewed brought tears to the eyes. Or the opening ceremony (which was televised) and the girl who lost a leg in the earthquake dancing with other children to Ravel’s Bolero (another Kleenex moment).
What is slightly annoying is that once again the coverage has been limited to highlight programmes unless you have some form of digibox. We get wall to wall ‘normal’ Olympics, but little or nothing from Beijing with the Paralympics and then we wonder why no one watches. It’s as if the rest of the world want to sideline these athletes, and it smacks a little of the rather outmoded view that we don’t want to see disability, that we’d rather cross the street, so to speak.
It would be good to recognise the acomplishments of these athletes as they happen, instead of some very edited programme (as good as that programme may be).
Davidkhr's Weblog 
[…] David and Stewart have both been blogging about the Paralympics and both making similar points about the lack of coverage. I confess I haven’t watched any but then I didn’t watch the Olympics either – only what I’ve spotted on the BBC News website. But what’s that got to do with Candidates’ Conference? Well, one of the more challenging presentations was from a retired minister by the name of Graham Monteith. […]
By: Candidates’ Conference Reflections - Disability | OrrWhat? on September 10, 2008
at 9:42 pm