IPC Chief and Sebastian Coe Look Forward to Paralympics

(ATR) International Paralympic Committee president Philip Craven tells Around the Rings the Paralympics will surprise and excite spectators and cap a "wonderful summer of sport".

With two weeks until the Games open, Craven said work is going on around the clock to prepare the Olympic Village and reconfigure some of the venues for the 21 sports on the Paralympic program.

"I have great confidence in our team and LOCOG. They will deliver a wonderful competition. Spectators will have a fantastic time," he told ATR, claiming that the Paralympic opening ceremony would wow audiences as much as Danny Boyle’s Olympic opening ceremony impressed.

Craven is delighted that the 2.5 million tickets for the Aug. 29 to Sept. 9 event have sold well; around 200,000 are still available.

"We have sold more tickets for the London Paralympics than we sold throughout the Beijing Paralympics [1.8m]," he said. "I am just very happy. I think the people of Britain want this wonderful summer of sport to continue."

While most of the Paralympic action is centred on the Olympic Park in east London, which welcomed 200,000-plus crowds for many days of the Olympics, some events are being staged elsewhere. As for the Olympics, sailing events are at Weymouth and Portland and rowing at Eton Dorney.

Wheelchair tennis is to be held at the 10,500-capacity Eton Manor site on the park. The only new permanent London 2012 Paralympic venue features four indoor and six outdoor wheelchair tennis competition courts. Paralympic road cycling is at Brands Hatch in the county of Kent, south of London.

Coe on Transition to Paralympics

Sebastian Coe, head of London 2012, said at a news conference on Monday that the Olympics marked the halfway point of LOCOG’s delivery plan with the transition and staging of the Paralympics now the mission.

"Our teams are at this moment hard at it… in essence we only have 10 days," he said, noting the chef de missions meeting coming up. "There’s no room for complacency."

Coe said the LOCOG workload included field of play adaptations and changes to seating bowls, lighting, cameras, video boards and fixtures and fittings to meet the needs of the Paralympic sports, spectators and broadcasters.

He said the two new venues for the Paralympics at Eton Manor and BrandsHatch were "extraordinary".

The 17 Olympic venues no longer needed are being dismantled, he explained, with some returned in full to their owners such as the archery site at Lord’s cricket ground and tennis venue at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon. He said the temporary Olympic venues – for water polo and basketball – will eventually be broken down and reused.

Coe stressed the importance of delivering a spectacular Games. "The Paralympics are coming home. They were created here in 1948… most developments in that movement have been British."

He hopes the Games for athletes with an impairment will "tilt misconceptions about the Paralympics".

"It will be an extraordinary moment for us. When people see, they will be amazed by the quality of the sport.

"The legacy around the Paralympics will be every bit as and maybe more important than for the Olympics," he added.

The Paralympics were first staged in Rome in 1960 but their inspiration comes from the Stoke Mandeville Games, which was organized for British World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries in 1948 by Dr Ludwig Guttmann of Stoke Mandeville Hospital. Four years later, Dutch ex-servicemen joined the movement and the International Stoke Mandeville Games were founded.

The Paralympic torch relay starts with the lighting of national flames at the summit of the highest peaks of the four home nations: Scafell Pike (England), Snowdon/Yr Wyddfa (Wales), Ben Nevis (Scotland) and Slieve Donard (Northern Ireland).

The four flames will then be placed in miner’s lanterns and transferred to the nation’s capital cities where they will each become the focus for a day of Paralympic celebrations.

From the Paralympic celebrations in London, Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, the flames will be taken to Stoke Mandeville, the home of the Paralympic movement, where they will be united during a special ceremony on Aug. 28 to create the London 2012 Paralympic Flame.

A 24-hour overnight torch relay will culminate in the lighting of the cauldron at the Olympic Stadium in east London at the opening ceremony. A total of 580 torchbearers are involved in the relay.

Sainsbury’s, the UK supermarket giant which is a Paralympic-only sponsor, launches a TV advert starring David Beckham today as part of its sponsorship of the Games. Paralympic Games-themed campaigns are also now running from LOCOG sponsors Lloyds, BT, BP and Cadbury over the next month.

Reported by Mark Bisson

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