Wednesday, May 20, 2009

BPA chief Lane calls for more Paralympic spotlight


Lane led Great Britain to Beijing in September and triumphantly returned with 102 medals in Britain's most successful Paralympic Games in 20 years.

The fifth Paralympic World Cup will commence tomorrow, with four sports and over 400 competitors from each 40 countries - the cream of the crop - taking part in Manchester.

From the 2008 edition, 134 of the athletes went on to claim medals at the Beijing Paralympics, but tomorrow will see many of those medallists return to the public eye for the first time.

The current economic climate has already accounted for the disability European Shooting Championships this year, while Manchester had to step in to save the World Para-Cycling Championships from going under.

And Lane, who revealed the fundamental purpose of the Paralympic World Cup is to showcase disability sport, is adamant there is a growing need for more multi-sport disability events in the calendar.

"It's fairly well known that in Paralympic sport there are few opportunities to have high level competition throughout the year," he said.

"The idea behind the very first Paralympic World Cup was to give athletes, in particular the Brits, the chance to compete at the highest in albeit a limited number of sports.

"I'm fairly wedded to the idea of a multi-sport event. It's attractive to the media and it's presented in a format that people can understand - hence the success of the Paralympic World Cup.

If you go to a single-sport competition you have to be a real expert to even understand what's going on.

"But this gives the public the chance to dip in and see some really high quality of Paralympic sport and although we've gained massively in terms of profile thanks to Beijing, we need to keep pushing out sport - there's a long way to go in marketing this."

When UK Sport made their funding announcements in January, Paralympic sports saw funding surge from £29million to £45m, but ParalympicsGB itself was cut from £4.29m to £1.86m.

Funding issues within disability sport are often the reason for elite athletes forgoing the chance to compete in the premier events within their sport.

The Paralympic World Cup on the other hand, largely thanks to BT's top-tier sponsorship, is paying for all competing athletes to make the trip to Manchester, and Lane insists it's time the global governing bodies in disability sport took notice.

"My understanding is that we've had record interest in terms of ticket sales and in terms of media interest, there seems to be a bigger buzz around the place," he added.

"This was only ever intended to be a showcase of Paralympic sport, it was never intended to be a full-on championships so to speak.

"And within that showcase there is the chance to see the very best across the world which doesn't happen in national or domestic championships or even in European or world events - often because of funding reasons.

"The great thing about this event is that we actually pay for the athletes to come so all they have to do is turn up - all the pressure is off them.

"So then you end up with 174 medallists from Beijing which is phenomenal.

"But while we do want that to happen, there is still very much room in the calendar for a showcase event such as this which gives the public a real snapshot of the quality in Paralympic sport."

* The BT Paralympic World Cup is taking place in Manchester from 20-25 May with over 400 competitors from over 31 countries scheduled to compete. Go to www.btparalympicworldcup.com for more information

morthanthegames, 19th May 2009

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