Thetownend.com

Come on -no platitudes - who's going to get into this?

It'll be great. Really looking forward to it

I probably won't watch as much of it as I want to, but I'm going to try. These guys are more impressive than their able bodied counterparts.

Going down all day friday, looking forward to it.

Some of the stories behind these athletes is gut wrenching

Brave fuckers, or what

The thing is, behind EVERY competitor over the next 11 days, there is a story of trauma, of adversity, of suffering, the like of which we as able bodied (and able minded) cannot begin to comprehend. They are truly amazing, heroes triumphing over adversity and discrimination.We should celebrate each and every one of them.

I'll watch bits and bobs...

im looking forward to wheelchair fencing.

'ella 'ella 'ella
eh eh eh eh

The opening ceremony has started....

There's one, and only one, Afghan athlete competing in the weightlifting.

Lost a leg via a landmine. No facilities, no coaching, no fuck all.

And this from a country that has just beheaded 12 women for dancing

One of my cousins has Spina Bifida and has spent vast amounts of his life at Stoke Maneville getting to know disabled people from all over the World including quite a few that will be competing. To say he is excited about the games is an understatement and is at the opening this evening. I'll be watching bits and pieces to start with but will probably get into it as I did with London 2012.

For the first time over 2 million tickets sold for these games...  It's good to see the games getting the respect they deserve.

Good luck to one and all.

I'll be watching.

Wheelchair rugby for me :clap:

Haven't seen Harry yet, Thought he was supposed to be there. Did his Gran ban him  :)

I see they've kept Prince Harry away from this one!!

He's more likely to bring the games into disrepute with his antics!

Ha !

Apparently wheelchair basketball is gaining popularity with non-disabled people due to its fast, furious and downright violent play.

Looking forward to that

Some of the wheelchair contact games get quite feisty, no quater given and all that. :)

I'm down at the Olympic Stadium on Monday.

Looking forward to it.

Not Paralympic related but did anyone else read about the javelin accident at the weekend in Germany. It happened in Dusseldorf, a 74 year old Offical was killed when he was speared threw the throat. He had bent down to measure a throw before the javelin had landed. The 16 year old who threw the javelin is receiving psychiatric counselling. My first thought was what's a 74 year old doing stood in the firing line of javelins ! Worth a look on the BBC sports site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtBv-Q0LbkU

only just rediscovered this tune. it should have been the olympic theme.

the lyrics are just norwegian names of olympic events until the end...

"en OL-ring
en lekegrind
en utopi
på virkelig

en posisjon
en prosesjon
en visjon

harmoni
en måneds tid"

which translates, roughly, as

"an olympic ring
a playpen
a utopia
for real

a position
a procession
a vision

harmony
a month's time"

Looks a great atmosphere at the opening ceremony again, come on Team GB!!!!!!

I have an old school friend who is compeating. Her name is Stephanie millward and she is swimming this morning in the 100m backstroke s9

I forgot about the opening ceremony was it good?

I'll watch some, but for a spectator its all a bit confusing.

The only word I could use is 'inspirational'.

Just tried to watch it on my PC and got the following:

[url width=514 height=247]http://i.imgur.com/m6icS.jpg[/url]

They are feeding one channel and can't do it right, say what you like about the BBC but their coverage was faultless.

agree, there coverage so far ia a bit shit

Says on twitter they are aware of problems.

Gave up watching the opening ceremony last night because of commerical breaks. Does everything happening in the stadium sit there and wait whilst commercials are on? No. THEN STOP SHOWING THEM. Fuckers.

That's me not watching it then. I'm likely to throw stuff at the monitor if an advert comes on during an event.

The commercials part pay for the rights though.

Obviously I'd rather BBC was showing it..

there's no adverts on the digital channels  553-555 on virgin and 450 ish? on Sky.Dunno if there are adverts on the online coverage though?

The amount of adverts this afternoon have been an absolute joke.  Channel 4 should be ashamed if they couldn't lose a little bit of revenue on advertising to leave the actual coverage running for longer periods.

Give me sport on BBC anytime!

Unfortunately it's all the BBC's fault, as C4 outbid them by virtually double the money, and when you consider C4 'only' bid £9m, it shows you how little they thought they could get the rights for.

And now we've just got to put up with the adverts for the next 10 days...

Wheelchair basketball is ace (Sky 451/454). GB were 16 points down on the Germans, now just 1 point in the 3rd.

I'm watching via the red button. Top entertainment. Currently the Germans lead 58-57

Not any more. GB now lead...

Apparently NBC are only showing 5 hrs of highlights in the US during the whole games.

Shameful !!

Why's it shameful? Perhaps they dont think there's great viewer demand for it?

Well i would imagine most American disabled people would want to watch it.....for starters.

More like US advertisers don't want their products associated with disability

Typical Yanks

How can there not be a demand for it if they don't show it in the first place.

Personally, I've found he wheelchair basketball more etertaining than the Olympic basketball competition.

Why? In 2008 the bbc showed a hours highlights programme per day (Monday to Friday), the rest was on BBCi. Only on Sat & Sun did they show live coverage on main stream tv.

I can understand why NBC have decided to broadcast other programmes, especially if they broadcast the Olympics just a couple of weeks ago.

5 Hours is a joke though Jan....no getting away from it.

It is a little on the tight side, however I assume no other broadcasters were interested? Or if you bid to show the Olympics did you have to take on the Paralympics too? Don't know how it works, but like I say I can understand why they haven't taken the C4 approach.

Think C4 may have gone a little too far the other way. The lead story of their daily news bulletin being about a gold medal winner is, in my book, not the kind of 'news' I tune in for, having said that that's be the same for Olympic golds too, top billing on a sports report, but 'news'? Nope.

Bloody Germans :(

NBC didn't exactly cover themselves with glory during the main Olympics either...One wonders why they bothered bidding for the rights

The basketball is amazing

Indeed. Enjoyed that. Now watching Mexico v China womens match. Kind of supporting the Mexican's, for no reason whatsoever really

Am I the only one that feels a bit uncomfortable watching some of the sports?

The swimming with competitors with varying disabilities seemed a bit of a freak show (pardon the phrase) to me. Seems a strange way to organise the events and it appears to be touchy subject amongst the competitors themselves.

Just because the athlete's disabilities are more visible in the swimming doesn't make it any different from any other of the sports.

Some people think the blade runners are cool.

I find the swimming probably the most awe inspiring - swimmers with no arms winning gold? Fantastic!

I agree. First time I've watched it today and can't help but think some have an advantage

Think it's mainly having people with such varying disabilities competing against each other.

I'm not knocking it or the competitors, but it just doesn't look right to me.

Can't believe how shit the Channel 4 coverage is. Think Locog fucked up taking the money over better quality coverage. The BBC's coverage of the Olympics was amazing and I'm sure they'd have done something similar for the Paralympics.

BBC set the bar so high, it was going to be impossible for C4 to replicate it. I do agree though, the coverage is a pale shadow of that of the main games, and that's a real shame.

It can be such a taboo subject but don't see to much wrong in using the phrase " freak show " I'm sure an awful lot of people feel slightly uncomfortable watching some of the competitors/Events. I guess a lot of able bodied people may not find it as inspiring as people with similar disabilities. I'm really enjoying most of the events but as with the other games a couple of weeks ago some of the events are just not my cup of tea.

At least there is coverage of it in the UK, it doesn't even make the news here

Went to this yesterday. It was blummin awesome. Sitting down volleyball looks more fun to play than the able bodied alternative (as long as you have child slaves to collect the balls which run off).

Blind judo made just as much sense as 'normal' judo, i.e. none. Was a bit concerned at how easily some of the atheletes could find their mark completely unguided, considering they were supposed to be blind. Or at least visually impaired, whatever that means.

Also saw the powerlifitng, which was probably the most inspiring thing I have ever witnessed with my own two eyeballs. Guys weighing less than 52kg bench pressing (so no legs or anything, purely arms and chests at play) 175kg was a magnificent soght to behold. A happy chinese man won too which was awesome. Happy chinese people are awesome.

Then went to the olympic staidum. Was some throwing events, which were dull to watch but largely beacsue I had no idea what the state of play was a lot of the time. The actual achievement of the athletes was breathtaking. One guy had one leg, but was warming up really robustly. I am quite inebriated now, so can't do it justice with words, but he was doing that thing where you swing your arms all the way around your body. With one leg. I am not being patronising or attempting at humour when I say that it was one of the best things I saw all day.

In terms of actual competition, the long jump was awesome. I didn't quite understand how the scoring worked, but some german bloke broke a record with every jump he did and that was awesome. In terms of the track, the british wheelchair 5000m bloke won his race, and a british woman won gold in the 100m wheelchair race. I shoud know their names, and will endevaur to learn in the future, but to say I was in the olympic stadium when a british Athlete won gold is a moment and an atmosphere I will never forget, nor decline to tell people at any opportunity.

In terms of the whole atmosphere in general, I didn't feel as if people were treating the competition in any negative light because of the physical ability of the athletes. It was really obvious that the crowd were massively up for the british people (awkwardly so in some instances), but from what I've read thats been the case throughtout the games. The stadium looked to be 95% full during the track and field events, and tammi grey-thompson said on the tannoy that was more people than showed up during the whole 2004 games. And I think britain can be immesnly proud of that.

I know it will always be second class to the olympic games, and I'll readily admit that i won't watch as much of this as I would it's able bodied counterpart. But the paralympics is indefinitely more inspiring, and affordable (!), than the olympic games, and I think Britian can be massively proud at how well it has embraced these games. I've seen the freak show comments in these threads, and I understand them. But those competing are doing so at the very limits of what their human capabilities can do, and that is no different to the able bodied athletes we saw two weeks ago.

TL;DR - I'm drunk. The paralympics is awesome.

Haaaa, said awesome a lot in the above. Sorry. Replace awesome with any other word of your choosing. Magnificent, great, dinosaur, superb. I don't care. It was brilliant.

Watching some of the Brits in action on TV, the crowds seemed to be going ballistic - far more so than during the Olympics. Was really impressed by it, the atmosphere and noise seemed up there with if not better than any football match I've been to. Guess it's partly due to there being more Brits in the crowd and partly due to excessive alcohol levels.

Anyone know when the whellchair rugby is on?

Watching the 100m yesterday and that Irish guy who won could easily have beaten some of the runners from the Olympics.  10.34 is rediculous time.

Checking my Paralympic programme, it starts on Wednesday.