British Paralympic Chief: More Work to be Done

(ATR) The CEO of the British Paralympic Association believes there is still a lot more work to be done in the Paralympic movement one year on from London 2012.

Tim Hollingsworth gave his view to reporters at the BPA headquarters in London on the past year since the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

Despite a wide acknowledgement that they were the most successful Paralympics to date, Hollingsworth was under no illusion that the movement's goals had all been accomplished.

"It is right to celebrate London 2012 and the Paralympic Games particularly and the very positive things that flowed from it but also to recognize the impact more broadly and recognize that after one year there is so much that we can look at," he said.

"There is so much that we can talk about, certainly from a performance perspective, perhaps as well from a wider social perspective but also by no means [is it the case] that there isn’t more that can be done on both fronts.

"We have not reached the summit in terms of everything we are looking to achieve but we are still in the foothills, particularly in the challenges we face and more broadly the wider disabled community face but London 2012 has created a brilliant platform for that debate to happen."

The BPA also announced a new commercial partnership with Mondelez International through March 2017, which takes their number of sponsors to six. The worth of these partnerships will be seen in the performances of Paralympic GB who compete soon at the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

The BPA’s first selected athletes for Sochi will be announced on Tuesday alongside the British Olympic Association’s announcement but Hollingsworth also spoke about the momentum from Sochi needs to carry through to Rio.

"Our Brazilian colleagues are shaping up very nicely indeed. The results in Lyon at the World Championships show how competitive they are in track and field and in the swimming pool as well.

"They are another nation who are going to be extremely competitive in their home Games and we saw the top six win more medals than in Beijing, take a greater share of medals than in Beijing."

But a major country who needed to focus more on Paralympic sport was the USA, Hollingsworth believed.

"America is the standout nation to try and change because there was clearly no interest at all. NBC had extraordinary discussions with the organizing committee about where their placements would be during the Olympics and then weren’t here for the Paralympic Games and I think that’s just one of the examples of where more could be done."

The Olympic Park in London will once again host Paralympic sport next week when the inaugural National Paralympic Day is held on September 7th with elite international Paralympic sport taking place in the Cobberbox.

Hollingsworth confirmed that all free tickets had been taken up for the sessions, which were around the 4,000 mark for the morning session and around 6,000 for the evening session featuring wheelchair basketball.

The BPA is aiming for National Paralympic Day to become an annual event to replace the Paralympic World Cup that was held in every year leading up to 2012.

But while Hollingsworth admitted that the international community had "growing pains" about the Paralympic movement, Paralympic equestrian champion Sophie Christiansen described having seen the increase in competition on a global scale.

"The other countries are really coming up behind us and that is really exciting. It really makes for a much more exciting competition.

"I’ve seen the growth that Paralympic sport has taken and I think LOCOG did an absolutely amazing job at planning both the Paralympic Games and Olympic Games on equal terms."

The BPA will announce two new sponsors next week as one-year celebrations and sporting events take place up and down the country.

Reported by Christian Radnedge

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