Paralympics opening

[Mr Jones]

Well, I turned off after listening to the terrible commentary. Channel 4 gave us a brief feeling what NBC gave to the Americans. Aweful!

 

[Judgeneo]

Why on earth could you hear that other woman commentating in the background? Channel 4 were completely unprofessional. Shows just how good of a job the BBC did.

The ceremony itself was a bit... Strange... Too abstract for my tastes, I liked the theme of science they did a lot of it quite well, but they shouldn't have spent so long on Newton. They could have mentioned Maxwell, Darwin, Fleming and a whole host of others. Too many apples by far.

 

[footman]

A group of us were watching this after a barbecue and a spirited conversation arose between me and a friend of my wife.
She said she couldn't grasp why we had to have an Olympics for "paralysed people" as the Olympics was all about physical perfection.
She then said "after all they're really sub-human"! I don't think I've ever shouted "what?" so loudly in my life.

She's Norwegian and old, there's a whiff of Nordic master-race about her.

 

[estebanrey]

A group of us were watching this after a barbecue and a spirited conversation arose between me and a friend of my wife.
She said she couldn't grasp why we had to have an Olympics for "paralysed people" as the Olympics was all about physical perfection.
She then said "after all they're really sub-human"! I don't think I've ever shouted "what?" so loudly in my life.

She's Norwegian and old, there's a whiff of Nordic master-race about her.

On the first point he's kinda right, although horrifically wrong with the "sub-human" comment.

But let's not kid ourselves, the Paralympics are a bit like someone wearing a wig in public. Everyone knows it's a wig, everyone knows he doesn't really have hair but we all go along with it colluding in the illusion he isn't bald. We all know Paralympic sport isn't as good (for want of a better word) as the regular Olympics, we all know the classification system is flawed (albeit the best system we have) and creates unfair competition etc but of course we pretend it isn't.

 

[iamtheoneneo]

But let's not kid ourselves, the Paralympics are a bit like someone wearing a wig in public. Everyone knows it's a wig, everyone knows he doesn't really have hair but we all go along with it colluding in the illusion he isn't bald. We all know Paralympic sport isn't as good (for want of a better word) as the regular Olympics, we all know the classification system is flawed (albeit the best system we have) and creates unfair competition etc but of course we pretend it isn't.

Don't reflect your own prejudice and claim everybody is the same please.
For me personally many parasports are considerably more exciting then those held at the Olympics (fencing for example)

And i wouldn't go as far as to say the system was flawed, especially when neither me nor you have a clear understanding of all the disabilities involved and how it effects performance.

 

[estebanrey]

Don't reflect your own prejudice and claim everybody is the same please.

Please don't mis-use the word prejudice. I am not pre-judging the Paralympics, I am judging them.

All I said is that clearly they level of sport isn't the same and ultimately this will be proven when comparing the viewing figures between the two events.

For me personally many parasports are considerably more exciting then those held at the Olympics (fencing for example)

Don't disagree, I find wheelchair basketball far more exciting to watch that regular basketball, but I was talking about "excitement" I was referring to watching 'world class' sport/achievement.

And i wouldn't go as far as to say the system was flawed, especially when neither me nor you have a clear understanding of all the disabilities involved and how it effects performance.

Well I probably have a better understanding given a personally know a Paralympic silver medallist who would have had gold but was 'upgraded' to a different category because there wasn't anyone else as good as her in hers.

But it's clearly flawed depending on the sport, for example one of the first swimming races I saw before work contained a man with no arms racing against a man with no legs at backstroke. Now in backstroke you start in the pool by kicking off the wall, so if you have no legs being able to push off well is nigh on impossible, the guy with no arms was given a helper to hold him in place but at the starting pistol he was let go and could use his legs to power himself off to a great start. He was about 8 metres in front of the guy with no legs within a few seconds simply because of this. After that, well I'd bet the extra muscle and mass in your legs would propel you better than only using your arms.

 

[mmj_uk]

It's an impossible task to ensure the Paralympics are 100% fair with all of the varying disabilities but I think the games themselves are a fantastic display of humanity.

I hate to see swimmers etc finishing a lap down through absolutely no fault of their own but the crowd rightly give them the praise they deserve, if it were up to me I would introduce a fourth medal that every competitor outside of the podium receives just as a recognition of their accomplishment.

 

[estebanrey]

I hate to see swimmers etc finishing a lap down through absolutely no fault of their own but the crowd rightly give them the praise they deserve, if it were up to me I would introduce a fourth medal that every competitor outside of the podium receives just as a recognition of their accomplishment.

Yeah, because that wouldn't be patronising would it?

I know you think are being nice but actually your kind of attitude is one they want to change in these games. They are cracking down on terms like "triumph over adversity" and "brave" because they don't want sympathy, they don't want to be admired for having a disability and being an athlete but just being an athlete.

 

[FreeStream]

oh please, the less money the BBC has the better. From what I have read BBC practically made no effort to get the rights.
The c4 coverage got a lot better when they took Jon Snow off the mic.

Because adverts every 15 minutes is much better?

CH4s coverage/presenters isn't as seemless as the BBCs was.

 

[Firestar_3x]

The coverage is stopping me watching the whole games, such a shame!

 

[mithrandir]

I lost interest when they showed the athletes, but witched the recording of the second part and it was good.
The adverts jsut killed the atmosphere though.

Also it seems they did not show the blue plane at the start of the show but saw it on the news and it looked as impressive as when I saw it during a practice run a few nights ago.

 

[estebanrey]

For those moaning about C4 and claim the BBC would have done it better here's an interesting statistic. Channel 4's coverage this year will contain 400% more coverage of the Paralympics than has ever happened before (i.e compared to the last time the BBC had it).

 

[cu3ed]

Its the quality of coverage is the problem, ads have killed it for me, completely breaks the spirit and excitement of it all.

 

[estebanrey]

Apparently the reason Channel 4 got the Paralympics is because they are used to showing embarrassing bodies.

 

[Merlin5]

I just watched the ceremony. Very impressed and quite moved tbh. Music was superb from start to finish, much better imo than the summer olympics. More depth, sophistication, no Paul McCartney, and no 'let's boast about all the great music britain has produced over the decades'. Denise Leigh the blind opera singer is amazing, the notes she hits towards the end are off the scale. And I'd never heard of 'Birdy' (Jasmine van den Bogaerde), but she's only 16 years old! She did an incredible performance on piano and vocal.

4oD was rubbish as it's only SD so I watched an HD version on youtube, a broadcast with some ozzie and american commentators. Quite nice commentary.

Birdy at 3:11:40, Denise Leigh at 2:33:42 if anyone's interested in revisiting those singers.

 

[estebanrey]

This was the best bit....