Paralympics 2012

[Dr. Simon]

So, who's watching this, what's the coverage like in other countries, what events are you looking forwards to and what have you thought so far?

Enjoyed the opening ceremony but not quite as much as the Olympic one; not quite so much irreverent anarchy and a bit more reverential solemnity, but I liked the science/enlightenment theme. Highlight was probably Orbital, Graeae Theatre and Stephen Hawking rocking out a cover of Ian Dury's Spasticus Autisticus (bet the auto-censor hits me with that...).

Not so impressed with C4's coverage. Unlike the Beeb with the Olympics they don't have channels for everything, so less chance to catch "minority" sports - currently it's all swimming and cycling, probably because those are TeamGB's best chances for medals (and we're doing well) but I wanted to catch a bit of goalball as well out of interest.

Women's basketball at the moment and it's pretty good, even though we're getting thrashed by the Netherlands. Can't work out if there's rules for travelling, though. There's dribbling but there also seems to be some rolling with the ball - maybe reasonable allowances for momentum?

[GnomeFighter]

Well, the opening may have lacked some of the show of the Olympics, but it had some properly "What the f**k is that" moments which the Olympic opening didn't this time.

As for the sport, ye, I think it is lacking in the coverage, but we will have to see what happens tonight. It may get better. I want to see the compound archery, so fingers crossed.

I THINK that the traveling rules are something to do with being able to keep rolling but not adding more speed (I.E. you can't push the wheels any more) BUT this is just what I have guessed, not based on any facts.

[Dr. Simon]

Re: wheelchair basketball, fortunately there are plenty of handy guides to the games so I now know that you must bounce the ball once for every two pushes, and there is no double-dribble rule.

Still finding the C4 coverage somewhat lacking, and it would be nice even if they didn't stream everything live if there were at least video highlights of the stuff that they didn't show. Mind you, from what I've heard about NBCs lacklustre efforts it sounds like we've got it relatively good.

[KuReshtin]

I was just listening to the commentary of the opening ceremony the other night while making dinner, and the most brainless comment by the female commentator during the parade was when some team came walking in.
i can't remember what country it was, but the commentary went something like this:

They have never won any medals in the Para-olympic games before, and they'll be trying to improve on that this time round.
This is the first time they've participated in the Para-olympic games.

Well, no wonder they've never won any medals if this is the first time they've participated. And it irked me that she kept calling it the 'Para-Olympics' and not the 'Paralympics'.

[happyturtle]

I'm looking forward to watching some of the events, as I'm disabled myself. But part of my disability is that watching television tires me out - especially when it's noisy things like sporting events. Swimming and basketball are the worst because their venues are so echoey and crowd-roary.

I watched the opening ceremony (with some breaks with the mute button on to rest) and I liked that they let the athletes in before the main part of the ceremony. They must have loved being able to be part of it instead of having to wait till the end to be let in the way it was at the Olympics.

NBC in the US only intends to show 5 1/2 hours of summary coverage after the games. Disgraceful! C4 may not be the best at this, but they've got NBC beat all to hell. Not that that is a high bar.

[Dr. Simon]

So C4 are finally showing some of the 5-a-side football, played by athletes with sight disabilities, wearing masks to even things out.

You'd expect blindfold football to be a ragged-looking farce, right? And yet there's some amazingly accurate passing, tackling and shooting for goal. Most impressive.