Around the Paralympics in 2012 we did a series of blogs on the stories of the athletes taking part, you can see them here. In the intervening years TV companies have started to realise that the success of Channel 4’s coverage is something to be imitated, if only because advertisers are realising we’re a community with money to spend and a loyal one at that!
Now we’re getting close to the 2016 Paralympics, Channel 4’s Superhuman, Pre Rio Paralympic coverage is set to begin with coverage of the IPC Swimming World Championships on 18th July in Glasgow.
They then continue at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for the Sainsbury’s IPC Athletics Grand Prix Final on 26th July, followed by a highlights show on 2nd August of the National Paralympic Day (26th july) and the Mayor of London’s Liberty Festival (24-26 july).
The most interesting appears to be a show in September of the highlights of a mass-participation disability event, the Para Tri, being held at Dorney Lake, Windsor on 9th August. This looks really exciting and involves everyone, disabled or not. The events cover elite and amateur athletes and include relays where at least there’s one person with a disability per team. As they say, you can
“palm off the less appealing stages to your disabled and able-bodied friends, family and colleagues”.
Additionally from 22nd to 31st October More4 will show ‘live action each day from the IPC Athletics World Championships from Doha, Qatar where more than 1,000 athletes from around 90 countries will compete…… one of the last major competitions before the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. Channel 4 has also gone a step further and is committed to ensuring that 10 per cent of its c. 300 strong production team for the Rio Paralympics will be people with disabilities. To be fair the BBC has had an inclusivity policy for many years with regard to staffing.
So let’s not forget the Beeb, they have a series called ‘Defying The Label’ starting 20th July on BBC3, covering fifteen stories examining the lives of young people with disabilities. Watch out for the one with Sophie Morgan (27th July) that explores ‘The World’s Worst Place To Be Disabled”. This was in Ghana where she actually ended up tied to a tree!! We think we have a hard time??!
The other stories cover what happens to disabled teens when they leave the ‘care system’, disability hate crime with facial disfigurement and my favourite a game show where celebrities are made disabled….
“this tongue-in-cheek mock gameshow pushes boundaries, plays with taboos and flips between the action on stage to a behind-the-scenes comedy drama back-stage.”
Finally ITV4 has also jumped on the bandwagon and they will be televising the World Wheelchair Rugby Challenge sponsored by BT. This again is at the Olympic Park in London from 12-16 October and features some of the world’s best ‘Murder Ball’ teams. The coverage includes live evening matches and 5 hours of broadcasting each day.
ITV wow, we’ve really become mainstream………..Looking forward to all of it and it’s inspired me to get a team together for the Para Tri!!