The Paris Paralympics are here the first games in Europe since London 2012. I'm intrigued as to how it will go, because I believe these Games will provide an important gauge of where the Paralympic movement is at, testing both the awareness of disability sport and of disability issues in general.
I still think London 2012 was a bit of an anomaly because of what Seb Coe did with LoCog and Channel 4 with the broadcasting. There was a lot of clever advertising around it, using the fact that we in the UK love a touch of cheeky humour.
It pushed at taboos, asking: what can we say about disability? Do we have to tiptoe around it? And it allowed disabled people to have a voice, to relay our point of view. One of the perspectives people had never really grasped before was the fact that, as disabled people, we take the piss out of each other. We gave C4 permission to go with that. I think this approach elevated the Paralympics in London and we haven't really had a chance to test the acceptance of disability sport or its popularity in Europe since then.
So I won't be looking only at the numbers that come to watch in Paris. That depends a lot on how much the French have been prepared to publicise the Paralympics and how creative they've been trying to get the message out.
Denne historien er fra August 30, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra August 30, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Friendship interrupted
They were best mates. Then one had a baby, while the other struggled to conceive. They share their brutally honest takes on what happens when motherhood affects friendship
KERNELS OF HOPE
During the siege of Leningrad, botanists in charge of an irreplaceable seed collection, the first of its kind, had to protect it from fire, rodents-and hunger
A new horizon' The inverse link between cancer and dementia
Scientists have long been aware of a curious connection between these common and feared diseases. At last, a clearer picture is emerging
Across the universe
Samantha Harvey won the Booker prize with a novel set in space. Yet, she says, Orbital is actually 'a celebration of Earth's beauty with a pang of loss'
Frank Auerbach 1931 -2024
Saved from the Holocaust, this artist captured the devastation of postwar Britain as ifits wounds were his own but he ultimately found salvation in painting
Seven lessons I've learned after 28 years as economics editor
Margaret Thatcher was Britain's prime minister and Neil Kinnock was leader of the Labour party.
Droughtstricken dam leaves economies powerless
A ll is not well with the waters of Lake Kariba, the world's human-made lake largest A punishing drought has drained the huge reservoir close to record lows, raising the prospect that the Kariba Dam, which powers the economies of Zambia and Zimbabwe, may have to shut down for the first time in its 65-year history.
Let this be the end of these excruciating celebrity endorsements
I wish celebrities would learn the art of the French exit. But they can't, which is why Eva Longoria has announced she no longer lives in America. \"I get to escape and go somewhere,\" she explained.
Alive, but unable to thrive under absolute patriarchy
Since the Taliban returned to power, women and girls have tried defiance, but despair at their harshly restricted lives
‘It's tragic’ Reflection in the wake of Amsterdam violence
Carrying signs scrawled with messages urging unity, they laid white roses at the statue of Anne Frank, steps away from the home where her family had hidden from Nazi persecution.
