Today marks one year since the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympics. We were all witnesses to an extraordinary twelve days that perhaps changed the way people think about disabled sport forever. It was a groundbreaking games and we see today as an anniversary well worth celebrating. Tomorrow we’ll deal with the actual legacy of the games but for now let’s sit back and remember our top ten highlights from London 2012.
1. The Opening Ceremony
We begin the same way the games did – with the Opening Ceremny. It was an incredible show featuring Stephen Hawking, Ian McKellen and many others which showed that the Paralympics were going to be every bit as spectacular as the Olympics had been. The Opening Ceremony helped to display how high the level of public enthusiasm for the games was with more than 11.2 million people watching it on Channel 4- the channel’s biggest audience of a decade.
“I was waiting in the tunnel with my teammates before going into the stadium,” Paralympic Archer Leigh Walmsley told us, “and as GB were announced, you could feel the stadium shake from the immense roar of the crowd. As we entered the stadium, we were showered in glittering confetti that sparkled from all the camera flashes. It was such a tremendous feeling of awe. I’ve never experienced anything like it!”
2. Swimming Stars
The pool was the venue which provided many of the biggest stars of London 2012. Swimmers topped the individual medal tables amongst both male and female competitors. Australian swimmer Jacqueline Freney won the most medals of anyone at the games with an incredible 8 golds and Brazil’s Daniel Dias’ 6 golds led the way amongst the men. Based purely on medal success, these two were the most successful athletes at the games. Meanwhile GB’s seventeen year old star, Ellie Simmonds, took home two gold medals, a silver and a bronze in the pool. Not bad either!
3. Pistorius Upset In More Ways Than One
After Brazil’s Alan Oliveira stormed past him to win one of the biggest upsets of the games in the T44 200m, South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius, complained about the Brazilian’s blades. Having had a fairly poor start, Oliveira came out of nowhere to shoot past the field and nip over the line in front of Pistorius. “We are not running in a fair race here,” he told Channel 4 after the race. “Not taking away from Alan’s performance, but these guys are a lot taller and you can’t compete.”
It was one of the more controversial moments of the games and got people talking. Pistorius later apologised after he realised that, despite the qualifying statement that he wasn’t trying to take anything away from the Brazilian’s moment, he had been a pretty bad loser.
4. The Paralympic Power Couple
Sarah Storey cycled her way to four more Paralympic golds in London to take her tally up to eleven overall, equaling Tanni Grey-Thompson and Dave Roberts’ joint British Paralympic record. She was further rewarded by being made a Dame in the New Year honours list. Meanwhile, Storey’s husband, Barney, also succeeded in the Velodrome securing a gold and a silver medal.
Had they been eligible, the pair would have placed 26th in the medals table, beating Algeria, Sweden, Egypt and many many others.
5. Gaysli Leon
The H3 hand-cycling race was won by Poland’s Rafal Wilk but the real star of the show was Haiti’s Gaysli Leon who was one of the most moving characters of the games.
Leon sustained spinal cord injuries during the 2010 Haiti earthquake, which tragically took the lives of his wife and eight children. At London 2012 he became the first person to represent Haiti in the Paralympics.
The 45-year-old finished 20 minutes behind the rest of the hand-cycling group, but walked away with a huge grin on his face. “I feel like all the biggest athletes in the world” he said.”To hear the crowd cheering me on, I was so happy.”
It really was an uplifting sight and one which (without wanting to sound too cheesy) really demonstrated the power of the human spirit.
6. Murderball
Wheelchair Rugby was one of the main draws at the London 2012 Paralympics. The fast and furious sport grew a real cult following for its high octane and aggressive nature, living up to its nickname of ‘Murderball’.
Canada won a close semi-final against the fancied Americans before losing to Australia in the final. But it wasn’t really about who won (and we’re not just saying that because GB only managed to come 5th); it was about the spectacle and the cultural impact of the game. If one sport epitomised how the Paralympics made people see disabled sport in a different way it was the crash and collision filled Murderball.
7. Thrilling Thursday
The Paralympic answer to the GB Olympic team’s Super Saturday was every bit as dramatic and exciting. Hannah Cockroft, David Weir and Jonnie Peacock all won gold medals for team GB during one wild session in the Olympic Stadium. Weir’s gold in the T54 800m was part of his incredible haul of four which also included the 1,500m, 5,000m and marathon. Wheelchair basketballer, Louise Sugden, described Peacock’s T44 100m gold as her favourite moment of the games “- such a great victory”. For more on Thrilling Thursday, check out our roundup of the evening.
8. Esther Vergeer
The legendary Wheelchair Tennis player was reduced to tears after winning her fourth Paralympic gold. Astonishingly, the final was the 470th consecutive match she had won.
Her winning streak lasted ten years and she was quite possibly the most dominant figure in all of sports during that time. London 2012 was her final Paralympic victory as she retired in February 2013. She must have just decided it was time to let somebody else can win for a change in Rio.
9. The Victory Parade
The Our Greatest Team parade through central London drew massive crowds all wanting to congratulate both the British Olympic and Paralympic teams. It was a huge moment for many people involved in the games, particularly for theParalympians who had as Louise Sugden explains “been so closed off from the world in the village that I hadn’t realised the impact the Olympics and Paralympics had on the public and it was a very proud moment for me”
Leigh Walmsley described her experience of witnessing the sheer size of the parade to us: “The bus was held on a side street as other buses were being loaded. It was filled with people and I thought to myself ‘there are a lot of people here’, but it wasn’t until our bus turned onto the main road and an ocean of thousands of people were cheering and waving! I was so completely overcome with emotion that I burst into uncontrollable tears. I simply couldn’t believe how many people took the time to come and congratulate us.”
10. The Greatest Paralympics Ever… Officially
The stats showed that London 2012 was undoubtedly the best Paralympics and in many ways a breakthrough games too:
- 251 World Records were set over 503 medal events
- A record 2.7 million tickets were sold for the Games with most events and sessions selling out.
- Channel 4 screened over 150 hours of live coverage, achieving record audiences.
- Channel 4’s coverage reached 39.9 million people – over 69% of the UK population.
- Throughout the course of the Games there were 1.3 million tweets mentioning ‘Paralympic’, The IPC’s Facebook following increased by 350% and there were 82.1 million views of its pages.
