Paralympics.......

As far as I can see the coverage that Channel 4 are providing is far and away above anything that has happened previously for the Paralympics. Even now in the USA it's NBC (i think) that hold the rights to broadcast the Paralympics and they are showing 4 30 minute programs whilst the games are on with a 90 minute round up show when it's all finished.

I thought the opening ceremony last night was fantastic.
 
neil_g said:
Thought it was a very good ceremony, in a few places it had me totally glued. Like the guy with no legs that did the dance then flew across the arena. Totally inspiring.
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Some friends of mine were in the stadium and they said it was an amazing night, fantastic atmosphere.
 
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on the plus side of C4, at least we dont have to suffer Gary Linnekar presenting anything and interviewing people. I think thats worth a few ad breaks.
 
essexash said:
on the plus side of C4, at least we dont have to suffer Gary Linnekar presenting anything and interviewing people. I think thats worth a few ad breaks.
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Now you've said that the ad breaks will be full of a certain crisp manufacturer.:lol:
 
What I find interesting is no good deed goes un noticed so if a Brit wins gold under our government does this mean that the dss will cancel their disability living allowance and deem them fit for work? (obviously providing they are actually on it and not working)
 
I was at Brands Hatch on Monday, which is where some of the Paralympics cycling events will be held. As we were leaving there was a bloke obviously in training with his hand powered bike making his way up the hill towards the main entrance. Anyone who knows Brands Hatch, will know how steep and long that hill is, I was certainly impressed, I wouldn't like to try it on a conventional bike, hell I've seen underpowered cars struggling to get up that hill.
 
archamedes said:
What I find interesting is no good deed goes un noticed so if a Brit wins gold under our government does this mean that the dss will cancel their disability living allowance and deem them fit for work? (obviously providing they are actually on it and not working)
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These people are elite athletes! I doubt very much if any of Team GB are claiming disability living allowance.
 
Gold for Sarah Storey in the individual pursuit in the velodrome! Emphatic doesn't even come close to describing how good the win was!
 
Also not impressed with coverage. Olympics get 3 BBC channels all day (and most of the evening). Paralympics gets a couple of hours here or there, on C4, with no-name presenters.
 
Leslie said:
These people are elite athletes! I doubt very much if any of Team GB are claiming disability living allowance.
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I didn't think so either but you do wonder.

Kind of going off topic here with this slightly however my mum knew a soldier who lost his leg in afghanistan. He was fighting to get his hands on everything from disabled parking badge to every disabled benefit he could, but while doing that he was also doing all that rock climbing, surfing and everything else he could do to prove he was just as good as he was before he lost his leg and couldn't understand why people were saying to him that he cant ask for disabled help and benefits while also proving he was perfectly able to do these things on his own. I appreciate it is a very grey area arguement but i could see the point that he wants a blue badge because he cant walk very far to get to a shop, but can climb a rock face or do a 200m sprint
 
OK quick question -

Swimming on and I can find the categories S1 to s10 on BBC website - S stands for swimming and then varying levels of physical impairment with one being severe, 10 being mild....

What would be the difference between say a 6 and a 7.

I assume S1 is multiple amputee / loss of limbs etc....
 
archamedes said:
What I find interesting is no good deed goes un noticed so if a Brit wins gold under our government does this mean that the dss will cancel their disability living allowance and deem them fit for work? (obviously providing they are actually on it and not working)
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Maybe you could avail yourself of the facts before making assumptions.

Disability Living Allowance is not means tested and is not dependant on them being unemployed. I think you'll probably find that a large number are indeed in receipt of DLA as they are entitled to be.
 
fabs said:
Maybe you could avail yourself of the facts before making assumptions.

Disability Living Allowance is not means tested and is not dependant on them being unemployed. I think you'll probably find that a large number are indeed in receipt of DLA as they are entitled to be.
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Interesting - didn't know that....

So theoretically a person could qualify for DLA but be relatively "lightly disabled" (sorry if that is PC incorrect - and I have no idea as to what is low / med / high) hold down a full time office job on say £30K a year, get a car under motability, a blue badge (no parking charges) and get £1000 a yr DLA (52 x £20.55)

Whereas the person next to the disabled person is on the same salary but has to buy and tax his / her car and doesn't get the £1K a yr.

I appreciate that has gone a bit off topic to my OP...:shrug:
 
Lynton said:
Interesting - didn't know that....

So theoretically a person could qualify for DLA but be relatively "lightly disabled" (sorry if that is PC incorrect - and I have no idea as to what is low / med / high) hold down a full time office job on say £30K a year, get a car under motability, a blue badge (no parking charges) and get £1000 a yr DLA (52 x £20.55)

Whereas the person next to the disabled person is on the same salary but has to buy and tax his / her car and doesn't get the £1K a yr.

I appreciate that has gone a bit off topic to my OP...:shrug:
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Well, you only get a blue badge if you receive the higher rate mobility part of DLA (same for a car) so, if you're only "lightly disabled", you shouldn't qualify for those things. Also, you don't get the car AND the money, it's one or t'other.

Not all parking is free for BB holders btw, t depends on the individual councils/car parks.
 
spacester said:
Also not impressed with coverage. Olympics get 3 BBC channels all day (and most of the evening). Paralympics gets a couple of hours here or there, on C4, with no-name presenters.
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Three live feeds on the red button, or have you not found these yet? :thinking:

Nothing wrong with no-name presenters, many of these are disabled athletes/commentators themselves.
 
Alastair said:
Nothing wrong with no-name presenters, many of these are disabled athletes/commentators themselves.
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I think the choice of presenters is inspiring, they search the UK for people with disabilities to do the job, so people will real knowledge, and not some patronising old hack.

I saw this morning they were given a weeks screen testing and training, makes you think why we put up with some of the very poor presenters we are normally stuck with.
 
I thought C4's commentary team did a far better job in last night's ceremony than the Beeb's lot did on July 27th. There was no endless wittering from C4 - they knew when to shut up and let the pics & sound do all the talking.
 
no idea as to what is happening but the wheelchair basketball is getting tense....

is ramming allowed? Seems to be.
 
I don't think it's being shown out here. I did a search on my iPlus (the Canal+ equivalent of Sky+) and found nothing.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
I don't think it's being shown out here. I did a search on my iPlus (the Canal+ equivalent of Sky+) and found nothing.
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I did a check of the German channels during the day, no coverage on their either. Other than the UK broadcast coverage seems to be very limited - but what coverage did the UK have for the Beijing Paralympics?
 
Not sure about Beijing. I think it might have been a highlight show every night. I'm actually not bothered about a few ads on D3100 if it means we're geting the level of coverage that we are. Watching The Last Leg just now and it's pretty good.
 
Ozei said:
That's what I was thinking. :suspect:
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I don't actually think ramming is allowed in wheelchair basketball. I do think though that the players are very good at making their opponents ram into them, i.e. they ensure they are stationary just before the impact.

It's a bit like able bodied basketball. According to the rules it's a non-contact sport but it must be the most 'contact' non-contact sport there is!

Track and Field starts today and I think David Weir is racing today. Good medal prospects there!
 
Perhaps I've been spoilt by the BBC's Olympic coverage where you could watch what YOU wanted and not what they wanted to show you as is with Channel 4.

When I went out in the morning and came home around lunch time I could go on BBC games schedule go to the Archery and watch the entire mornings broadcast....brilliant but you don't get that option with Channel 4.
 
Channel 4 have got online 'channels' running, though only one is currently on, and as I was at the games yesterday, not sure how many of them have different events running, but its worth checking if you want to watch a single event rather than the flipping they do on the TV coverage.
 
Yv said:
Channel 4 have got online 'channels' running, though only one is currently on, and as I was at the games yesterday, not sure how many of them have different events running, but its worth checking if you want to watch a single event rather than the flipping they do on the TV coverage.
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still not working for me, not available in my territory apparently. loads of people having the same issue it seems. shocking. got the F1 practice on instead.
 
Yv said:
Working here, but only cycling and swimming, 3rd channel is not on, which is very annoying as I KNOW equestrian tests are on, would like to have seen some of them while getting ready to go out :(
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god dont mention the dressage, some our friends are royally p...eeved at the lack of coverage.
 
neil_g said:
god dont mention the dressage, some our friends are royally p...eeved at the lack of coverage.
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I bet they are! I stuck some photos from yesterdays tests down in photos for pleasure, could have gone today too, Kelly had tickets for me but working. :(

Actually neil, perhaps you can answer a question that wasn't covered on the C4 commentary - a couple of the riders had '2nd' horses brought out while they did their tests, just standing in a lightweight blanket in the arena. The on-site commentator asked the audience not to applaud until the riding horse and 'spare' were reunited. Now I assume this is the stop the ridden horse getting spooky while away from his/her mate, but is this usual? I mean that some of the horse need their pals nearby to keep them calm?

Also, the last rider, an Aussie girl, had a coach shouting the moves from the side of the dressage ring, no one else did... again, normal?
 
Lynton said:
OK quick question -

Swimming on and I can find the categories S1 to s10 on BBC website - S stands for swimming and then varying levels of physical impairment with one being severe, 10 being mild....

What would be the difference between say a 6 and a 7.

I assume S1 is multiple amputee / loss of limbs etc....
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It's to do with the effect of there disability on their ability to swim, so they start on the same footing, for instance loss of arm and leg is the same as no legs as is dwarfism, I watched some of the opening ceremony it said there

Lynton said:
Interesting - didn't know that....

So theoretically a person could qualify for DLA but be relatively "lightly disabled" (sorry if that is PC incorrect - and I have no idea as to what is low / med / high) hold down a full time office job on say £30K a year, get a car under motability, a blue badge (no parking charges) and get £1000 a yr DLA (52 x £20.55)

Whereas the person next to the disabled person is on the same salary but has to buy and tax his / her car and doesn't get the £1K a yr.

I appreciate that has gone a bit off topic to my OP...:shrug:
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Dla is given so that someone can stay at work/live a normal life, buy aids or use aids to allow to function at work, it's not an easy benefit to get. I doubt the 'lightly disabled' would get it, not only is a huge book type form you then have to be assessed by a dr

fabs said:
Well, you only get a blue badge if you receive the higher rate mobility part of DLA (same for a car) so, if you're only "lightly disabled", you shouldn't qualify for those things. Also, you don't get the car AND the money, it's one or t'other.

Not all parking is free for BB holders btw, t depends on the individual councils/car parks.
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No your wrong, not all blue badge users get the mobility part of dla, but if you do get the higher award you automatically get it, but you can get a blue badge if you don't, you have to apply via your council or dr, depending on our loal rules, the dr will then assess your need ad if you meet the criteria then they give you a blue badge (which you have to pay for)

And as for being 'lightly disabled', the mind boggles, to be honest I think the terms really offensive
 
Yv said:
I bet they are! I stuck some photos from yesterdays tests down in photos for pleasure, could have gone today too, Kelly had tickets for me but working. :(

Actually neil, perhaps you can answer a question that wasn't covered on the C4 commentary - a couple of the riders had '2nd' horses brought out while they did their tests, just standing in a lightweight blanket in the arena. The on-site commentator asked the audience not to applaud until the riding horse and 'spare' were reunited. Now I assume this is the stop the ridden horse getting spooky while away from his/her mate, but is this usual? I mean that some of the horse need their pals nearby to keep them calm?

Also, the last rider, an Aussie girl, had a coach shouting the moves from the side of the dressage ring, no one else did... again, normal?
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ive not seen that before at this level to be honest. yeah like you say i have seen it at pony club/low end comps where a horses "friend" will be held nearby/line of sight to stop it becoming distracted looking/calling for them.

i'll ask the other half, see if she knows why they do it here.
 
Yv - well its not a "spare" horse, according to the FEI:

"No reserve Athletes/Horses will be permitted."

you can substitute a horse but not within 2hrs of the start of the comp but only in the event of accident or illness.

cant find anything in the rules other wise but i did skim read..
 
ah..

"15. Other Outside assistance
15.1. Any other outside assistance or intervention, including coaching by voice, signs etc, may
result in elimination, at the discretion of the President of the Ground Jury or the Judge at C.
15.2. The Athlete’s trainer or representative may stand near the Competition arena to relay
the Judges’ instructions, if necessary.
15.3. Helpers may be placed in corners outside the arena for safety reasons. In an emergency,
they may give physical assistance. Penalties will be at the discretion of the Judge at C, who
may eliminate the Athlete either at the time, or at the conclusion of the Test.
15.4. For Grade Ia, Ib and II, if circumstances allow a companion Horse may stand adjacent to
the arena."

page 40 - http://www.fei.org/sites/default/fi...Rules/Para Rules_2012_FINAL_clean_30Nov11.pdf

(yes im bored)
 
Arwensarah said:
And as for being 'lightly disabled', the mind boggles, to be honest I think the terms really offensive
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Things like this **** me off :bang:

Can I ask you a personal question? Do you consider yourself to have a disability? If you don't then why are you offended? If you do then I'd suggest you're probably a bit too sensitive.

There was a bit on The Last Leg with Adam Hills last night about what kind of things you can say during the Paralympics and the answer was that it has to be taken in context. Say what you want as long as you're not trying to be offensive.

When Lynton first said " "lightly disabled" (sorry if that is PC incorrect - and I have no idea as to what is low / med / high)" It was quite clear that he wasn't trying to offensive.
 
whats wrong with "lightly disabled"? compared to maybe someone with motor neuron who could be classed as something like "highly disabled".

its just trying to put a bit of context on the severity of the persons disability (maybe a bit like the different classifications in the paralympics). nothing offensive.
 
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neil_g said:
whats wrong with "lightly disabled"? compared to maybe someone with motor neuron who could be classed as something like "highly disabled".

its just trying to put a bit of context on the severity of the persons disability (maybe a bit like the different classifications in the paralympics). nothing offensive.
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I think the problem relates to the context within the overall post rather than the term.

The phrase "lightly disabled" was used in the context of DLA by someone who didn't understand the benefit system and in a manner that might be interpreted as being critical of disabled people entitlement to receiving state benefit. The internet is a blunt tool for expression and a genuine enquiry about the nature of disability benefits can be easily misinterpreted. Particularly at a time when a sponsor of the Paralympics is being paid by the state to remove benefits from disabled claimants.
 
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