Paralympics

[The Watcher Pat]

Uladh if you dont like watching it dont watch it...There are 100's of channels you can watch.....Think that attitude stinks...This is only on every 4 years and people train hard for it...Its only fair they have the coverage they deserve.

[Uladh]

Do they train harder than say, county footballers or hurlers? or league of ireland / irish league soccer players? or all ireland league club rugby players?

[lfdown2]

i would say as hard and in cases harder yes, but i dont understand the argument, they too get tv/radio coverage?

[mannix]

Uladh, stop.
You will not win, yes the sport is less quality but what do you expect.
Let them have their games and enjoy it, sport is for everyone and they can have theirs despite the doomsayers.

[ziggysego]

I was watching the swimming on Sunday and it was amazing. Personally found it more enjoyable and exciting to watch than the "regular" olympics.

[Uladh]

Get real - ongoing national coverage on every bulletin on top of daily highlight programs?

i'm now satisfied that the "let them have their day in the sun" brigade are some of the most hypcritical people about. why not put a big tent over the stadium and invite the masses to have a good look? ah sure look at them, aren't they great fellas.

[ziggysego]

Go on and f**k off, I take this as a deep personal insult.

[Uladh]

Go on and f**k off, I take this as a deep personal insult.

You may or may not be interested to know that i don't care how you take it.

[Denn Forever]

Now that the Olympics are over, off the top of my head I can only name Bolt and I know someone from team GB won 3 cycling medal but if you say his name I'll remember.  No one else.  If the olympics are your bag and you are interested, you (i.e. me) would be able to name a lot more.

What  was the point of this thread?  Oh yeah, why the coverage?  Why not?  They are athletes representing their countries.  5Live's remit is as a sports channel so it is brilliant that they are covering the Paralympics. 

The interesting competition in the Paralympics will be the 100m final.  Will anyone get near Preytoreous (SA guy whoses name I can't spell).  Do other athletes use the blades like him?

[full back]

The interesting competition in the Paralympics will be the 100m final.  Will anyone get near Preytoreous (SA guy whoses name I can't spell).  Do other athletes use the blades like him?

Was he the guy that they werent going to let compete because it gave him an unfair advantage?

[Denn Forever]

The interesting competition in the Paralympics will be the 100m final.  Will anyone get near Preytoreous (SA guy whoses name I can't spell).  Do other athletes use the blades like him?

Was he the guy that they werent going to let compete because it gave him an unfair advantage?

The unfair advantage was in the regular olympics.

[Declan]

Think this article pretty much sums it up for me:


IAN O'RIORDAN ON ATHLETICS: You don't know the meaning of sporting dedication till you meet Patrice Dockery

THE OLD Belfield track on a cold and wet winter's evening is no place for the faint-hearted. If you fancy it, the only consolation is you'll probably have the place to yourself, which I thought I did one such evening a few years back, until I ran into Patrice Dockery.

Not literally, of course, as Dockery was training in her wheelchair, and I would surely have come out the worse off. She was travelling a lot quicker than I was. We'd spoken on the phone several times, and seeing her train alone that miserable evening in Belfield simply underlined what I already suspected. You don't know the meaning of dedication in sport until you know an athlete like Patrice Dockery.

We've spoken on the phone since, and more than anyone I know, Dockery portrays the essence and worth of Paralympic sport. This evening, she carries the Irish flag at the opening ceremony of the 13th Paralympic Games in Beijing, a more than fitting honour given it's her sixth successive Olympics.

No other Irish sportsperson can rival such Olympian status. She's never won a medal, yet incredibly, has finished fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth. At 37, she probably won't win a medal this time either, but if that was the only reason she got involved in athletics then she'd have given up years ago.

What drives Dockery is what drives every other elite athlete: obsession. It's what has driven her to compete in five world championships (winning silver in 1990) and also win the Dublin marathon.

She returns to her original distances in Beijing, the sprint track events, and while she claims this will be her last competition, I wouldn't bet on it.

It was Dockery who first explained to me the philosophy of Paralympic sport. The name derives from the Greek "para" ("beside" or "alongside") and thus refers to a parallel competition to the Olympic Games. No relation with paralysis or paraplegia is intended, and while there are five disability categories, intellectual disability is not one of them.

The intensity of the competition is on a par with the Olympic Games. Increasingly, the actual performances are on a par too, particularly South Africa's famous Paralympian Oscar Pistorius - aka the Blade Runner.

When Pistorius was 17 months old and his mother realised a double amputation from below the knee offered him the best chance of a relatively normal life she wrote him an open letter, finishing with the line: "A loser is not the one who runs last in the race. It's the one who sits and watches and who has never tried to run."

Pistorius' mother encouraged him to participate in a range of sports and it was only when he injured his knee playing rugby in early 2004 that he switched to athletes, and just eight months later, won gold in the 200 metres at the Athens Paralympics, aged just 17. His mother never got to witness it as she died two years previously.

So he next set himself the ambition of running in last month's Olympics, first by proving his carbon-fibre blades didn't offer him an unfair advantage, and then by chasing the 400 metres qualifying time of 45.55 seconds. His got down to 46.25, finishing third at the South Africa championships. "I'll just have to redouble my efforts to make sure I qualify for London in 2012," he announced.

Pistorius has entered three events in Beijing - the 100, 200 and 400 metres - and more than any other athlete he can raise the profile of the Paralympics.

It's a role he's taking very seriously, so much so that he surprised a lot of people earlier this week with harsh criticism of South Africa's preparations for Beijing, including the fact that their Olympic officials flew out business class, while the athletes, despite their disability, were back in the economy class. He also labelled the team outfits for the opening ceremony "an embarrassment". He's serious about the sport because he wants the sport to be taken seriously.

South Africa also boasts the second most famous Paralympian in swimmer Natalie du Toit. She carries their flag in this evening's opening ceremony, as she did inside the Bird's Nest a few weeks ago. Despite losing a leg in a motor accident in 2001, she qualified for the 10km open water swim at the Olympics, finishing 16th, the first Paralympic athlete to contest an able-bodied swimming final.

This time, du Toit competes in five events, with a chance of winning all five. Like Pistorius and Dockery she's continually breaking barriers and setting new standards and closing the gap between Olympic and Paralympic sport, and what a wonderful thing that is.

[Uladh]

He was cleared to compete in the actual olympics but could not make the qualifying time. he won this morning's 100m (ths version) after the fella leading well fell. he'll wn the 200 and 400 fairly handily.

[Uladh]

Think this article pretty much sums it up for me:


IAN O'RIORDAN ON ATHLETICS: You don't know the meaning of sporting dedication till you meet Patrice Dockery

THE OLD Belfield track on a cold and wet winter's evening is no place for the faint-hearted. If you fancy it, the only consolation is you'll probably have the place to yourself, which I thought I did one such evening a few years back, until I ran into Patrice Dockery.

Not literally, of course, as Dockery was training in her wheelchair, and I would surely have come out the worse off. She was travelling a lot quicker than I was. We'd spoken on the phone several times, and seeing her train alone that miserable evening in Belfield simply underlined what I already suspected. You don't know the meaning of dedication in sport until you know an athlete like Patrice Dockery.

We've spoken on the phone since, and more than anyone I know, Dockery portrays the essence and worth of Paralympic sport. This evening, she carries the Irish flag at the opening ceremony of the 13th Paralympic Games in Beijing, a more than fitting honour given it's her sixth successive Olympics.

No other Irish sportsperson can rival such Olympian status. She's never won a medal, yet incredibly, has finished fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth. At 37, she probably won't win a medal this time either, but if that was the only reason she got involved in athletics then she'd have given up years ago.

What drives Dockery is what drives every other elite athlete: obsession. It's what has driven her to compete in five world championships (winning silver in 1990) and also win the Dublin marathon.

She returns to her original distances in Beijing, the sprint track events, and while she claims this will be her last competition, I wouldn't bet on it.

It was Dockery who first explained to me the philosophy of Paralympic sport. The name derives from the Greek "para" ("beside" or "alongside") and thus refers to a parallel competition to the Olympic Games. No relation with paralysis or paraplegia is intended, and while there are five disability categories, intellectual disability is not one of them.

The intensity of the competition is on a par with the Olympic Games. Increasingly, the actual performances are on a par too, particularly South Africa's famous Paralympian Oscar Pistorius - aka the Blade Runner.

When Pistorius was 17 months old and his mother realised a double amputation from below the knee offered him the best chance of a relatively normal life she wrote him an open letter, finishing with the line: "A loser is not the one who runs last in the race. It's the one who sits and watches and who has never tried to run."

Pistorius' mother encouraged him to participate in a range of sports and it was only when he injured his knee playing rugby in early 2004 that he switched to athletes, and just eight months later, won gold in the 200 metres at the Athens Paralympics, aged just 17. His mother never got to witness it as she died two years previously.

So he next set himself the ambition of running in last month's Olympics, first by proving his carbon-fibre blades didn't offer him an unfair advantage, and then by chasing the 400 metres qualifying time of 45.55 seconds. His got down to 46.25, finishing third at the South Africa championships. "I'll just have to redouble my efforts to make sure I qualify for London in 2012," he announced.

Pistorius has entered three events in Beijing - the 100, 200 and 400 metres - and more than any other athlete he can raise the profile of the Paralympics.

It's a role he's taking very seriously, so much so that he surprised a lot of people earlier this week with harsh criticism of South Africa's preparations for Beijing, including the fact that their Olympic officials flew out business class, while the athletes, despite their disability, were back in the economy class. He also labelled the team outfits for the opening ceremony "an embarrassment". He's serious about the sport because he wants the sport to be taken seriously.

South Africa also boasts the second most famous Paralympian in swimmer Natalie du Toit. She carries their flag in this evening's opening ceremony, as she did inside the Bird's Nest a few weeks ago. Despite losing a leg in a motor accident in 2001, she qualified for the 10km open water swim at the Olympics, finishing 16th, the first Paralympic athlete to contest an able-bodied swimming final.

This time, du Toit competes in five events, with a chance of winning all five. Like Pistorius and Dockery she's continually breaking barriers and setting new standards and closing the gap between Olympic and Paralympic sport, and what a wonderful thing that is.

My mother is the most dedicated gardener i know. 3/4 hours a day, 7 days a week. no grant or press coverage is available to her. why not? you can't sell tickets or tv rights to it.

hands up here who has paid money to see non able bodied sports event? tv coverage is provided globally for the paralympics free gratis.

[Gabriel_Hurl]

Uladh - are you drunk or something?