Paralympics

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gatorman said:
Russ don't get me wrong. They are all inspiring in their own way I am sure


The point I am making is that we as the Aussie sporting public still don't care about the paras. Tomorrow at work nobody is going to be talking about the 100 m women's d7 race???? We don't care. We patronize it, that's all we do
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But your point was they weren't riverting, not that the sporting public don't care about the paras.

There are plenty of para events that are riverting. So what if no one cares. That doesn't change the fact that they can be great contests.

If people want to ignore it that is their democratic choice. No different to netball before they started getting decent coverage. They always had riverting state games and international games and the public didn't care. But a couple of great tight world championship finals and the double or triple overtime Comm games gold medal match against the Kiwis changed that because they were able to watch it.

No different here with the paras. If they have great contests the audience will come.

State Rugby League games and even State Aussie Rules games were so so to most of the sporting public because the outcomes were bloody predictable. When they went to state of origin and the games became great tight close contests, the crowds came and the TV audiences grew.
 

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Here's the link at you tube red+black tried to put up. For some reason big footy automatically embeds any Youtube URL. Just type the two together into one line.

http://www.youtube.com/
watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kKTamH__xuQ

I saw that a couple of weeks ago on Gruen Sweat and was blown away and had to use the IQ to rewind and watch it over again.
 
I think you're trying to what I did. Not sure you can post a link to a youtube video and have the actual video link as the text, have to do something like I did above ie. the click here.

And yeah I also saw it on Gruen, great stuff! (And I've been on the PE bandwagon since '88)
 
Black Panther said:
Been flicking to it at various times, don't think I have seen one second of actual sport, just a bunch of so-called comedians and a bimbo chatting away
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My impression also - it seems to be focussed on 'Let's make sure we show the Australian races, but absolutely no others'. Just as parochial as channel 9.

My take on the paralympics - i do feel a little bit uncomfortable watching it, because I do find it a bit patronising. These people have overcome hardships that most of us don't face - OK. But everyone overcomes some hardships - most of them aren't as serious, or more importantly, as visible as the Paralympians. But very few of us give up. We just get on with life and work around our problems as best we can. I saw an interview with a thalidomide victim who talked about the issue of 'Super-cripps'. His mates would be saying to him 'Come skydiving! Swim with Sharks! Climb everest! You can do all those, you know!'. His take was he preferred to live his life quietly in other ways, and he didn't need to do things in spite of his handicaps. But the only handicapped person ever held up in the media for non-athletic achievements is Hawking.

As for the competition - I will watch it, and be impressed. But I can't take it serioulsy as elite competitive sport for a couple of reasons. The obvious is the classification issue - even though I don't understand it, it is clear that there are some races where some individuals have enormous advantages over other competitors.
The second is how small a pool of potential athletes are actually allowed to compete in these events. If I want to be the world's fastest male 100m runner I have to beat 3 billion others. Ok, making allowance for age, society, funding and pure inclination to do sport, i still probably have to beat at least half a billion. In Australia I probably have to beat a few million. In the T43 classification (Oscar Pistorius) there are 3 registered athletes in Australia. Pistorius competes in the T44 category, because he has no competition in the T43 category.

Reading that, I haven't expressed myself well. I like paralympic sports, because everyone deserves to have the opportunity to play sport at an approptriate level (it's why we have age and weight classifications in able-bodied sport). I'm probably more upset about the tone of coverage (and I think the 'Super People' advert is not the way I would have symbolised it - inspiring though it be).

I thought Maddie hogan (the javelin thrower in the studio) was great - she's not a 'super-person'. She's a smart, attractive, lively person who knows how to do a gentle wind-up other people - oh, and she's missing half an arm.
 
Yes yes its all fluffy and and feel good. We won the T45 disability and the D15 quad disability and so on

The guys at MMM this morning could not even explain the difference in intellectually handicaped events. What hope have we got??

Aussie Aussie Aussie yeah ok if it makes us all sleep better then lets get right behind the feel good games, but don't try and tell me you are seriously interested
 
I don't know how the classification works, but from the bellybutton down Mallory Weggeman has had no movement whatsoever for the last 4 years and they've had her classified at a certain level, up until 3 days ago. They called her in for an examination and classified her into a higher level and stripped her records (they never told her that either, she found out from looking on the internet) from the last 4 years. Pretty cruel way of doing it just a few days before she's meant to swim. And her condition hasn't gotten better or worse over that period, so why didn't the reclassify her at any time over the last 4 years? They just interviewed her on TV here and she was remarkably composed about it all.
 
You gotta give it to the poms/brits. A full stadium at the athletics for the morning session. I reckon the best crowd of the 2 day sessions and 3 night sessions I went to in Sydney was about 45,000 when it was full of school kids.

Just watching the heats of the 1,500m heat of the blind guys running with a string between them and their running partners. I'm amazed there aren't more crashes and stumbles. And even more amazed they run marathons tethered to each other.
 
I watched some of the blind football as well, amazing how well they do with just a bell in the ball. Not a lot of passing, but great to see them dribble and somehow know where the goal is.
 
For those of you who don't like the ABC's coverage, the IPC are doing a decent streaming coverage on their website. It can be error prone and the commentary is often lacking, but they usually are showing at least 2 events at once.
paralympic.org/
 

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Interesting that Gerry Collins has come out of retirement to do the swimming commentary for the ABC. I missed him calling the swimming at the Olympics on ABC Radio.

As I said in either the swimming or media thread the great ABC radio team for the 2004 and 2008 Olympics and 2007 World Champs in Melbourne of Gerry, Norman May, Susie O'Neill and Rob Woodhouse was broken up for London. Gerry and Norman retired, Susie went to Foxtel and Woodhouse teamed up with Gerard Whateley for ABC radio.
 
gatorman said:
Why do we have to bulls#*t ourselves? I am not knocking the athletes but just stating how most of us feel. Go para,s win 200 gold medals, nobody will remember anyones name within a week.

Just sayin
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You're saying what you feel. Don't presume to speak for others.
 
Fred said:
You're saying what you feel. Don't presume to speak for others.
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I am saying what a lot of other people are scared to say, especially in the media.

Again I am not having a go at the competitors, I am just saying that nobody outside of friends and relatives actually care less about the para games because Aussies only like watching the best.

On that note tell me what disadvantage a rifle shooter has from shooting out of a wheel chair?????

Jeeez that makes it easier. Give me a friggin break
 
gatorman said:
I am saying what a lot of other people are scared to say, especially in the media.

Again I am not having a go at the competitors, I am just saying that nobody outside of friends and relatives actually care less about the para games because Aussies only like watching the best.

On that note tell me what disadvantage a rifle shooter has from shooting out of a wheel chair?????

Jeeez that makes it easier. Give me a friggin break
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Many paraplegics also have limited/restricted arm movement. And how many people have to tell you that they do care about the Paralympics before you shut up?
 
gatorman said:
I am saying what a lot of other people are scared to say, especially in the media.

Again I am not having a go at the competitors, I am just saying that nobody outside of friends and relatives actually care less about the para games because Aussies only like watching the best.

On that note tell me what disadvantage a rifle shooter has from shooting out of a wheel chair?????

Jeeez that makes it easier. Give me a friggin break
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The most suitable response to that is - rubbish!

For someone that doesn't care you sure post about it a lot.
 
ag6858 said:
For those of you who don't like the ABC's coverage, the IPC are doing a decent streaming coverage on their website. It can be error prone and the commentary is often lacking, but they usually are showing at least 2 events at once.
paralympic.org/
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I've been watching as well and it's been great to fill it in the gaps when the ABC coverage isn't on the box.
 
Abc coverage is average with not a hell of alot of live sport in the night time slot. Though to be fair perhaps the studio sort of lighthearted approach is the best way to do things considering the sport itself isn't exactly top shelf at the Paralympics
 
TheRevolution said:
Abc coverage is average with not a hell of alot of live sport in the night time slot. Though to be fair perhaps the studio sort of lighthearted approach is the best way to do things considering the sport itself isn't exactly top shelf at the Paralympics
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Good to have good commentators there though who know what they are doing.
 
One thing i was pleased to see when researching last week is that it is not just for people who may not be able to walk or use different parts of there body, its also for people like me who have learning problems & a low iq in particular.

People see disability as not being able to move around but there are so many different aspects of the paralympics i did not know about.


It is hard to compete with normal human being when things are "not right" its great to give these people a chance to compete

I wish a major broadcaster (7,9,10) took the paralympics & broadcasted it on go or gem.

I also wish they gave people with a disability a chance to report or interview athletes. Adam hill is a good face for abc no disrespect to him.

These games are not about medals, they are about giving everyone in the world a go & not writing them off because of a problem they may have
 
Maybe I see sport from a different angle, but I like watching the Paralympics.

The blinkies & wheelies have great senses of humour, very cutting edge with no political correctness. Maybe I enjoy watching sport without bulging egos !!!!?.

Love to put "bitchers" like John Steffensen with some of these athletes for a day, he won't whine again.
 
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