Live Sport 10: Paralympics
I've kept putting this post off, as I've been waiting for the conclusion of a certain trial, but I can't really wait any longer, and in any case, whether one judge finds Oscar Pistorius guilty of premeditated murder isn't really key to what I'm going to write. It would have only been a pertinent fact when writing about being in the Olympic Stadium on a beautiful early September evening for the last night of athletics in the 2012 Paralympics.
The weather in 2012 was shocking, if you recall. It was shocking for approximately 48 weeks of the year. But the 4 weeks for which it was glorious were the weeks of the Olympics and then the Paralympics. I went to the three Olympic events - football, swimming and boxing, at pretty high but worthwhile prices, and had also, at Juliette's prompting, booked three or four Paralympic tickets, at fantastically low prices. If they kept it low to make sure the Londoners turned up, it worked in abundance. Packed arenas, the atmosphere just as good as at the Olympics.
Patriotism has never been my thing, far from it, but I don't know if anything has made me prouder of my provenance than how London did those sporting events that summer, how London's glorious embrace of both sporting greatness and of disability took the Paralympic movement into a new area of consciousness, of recognition of it as great sport in and of itself, with an extra something to make it doubly admirable. People saw David Weir, Sarah Storey, Jonnie Peacock, Richard Whitehead etc as sporting superstars full stop. I could tell, there was nothing forced or patronising about it.
It was actually me, me with all my weighing up of worths, with my overthinking of everything, for whom it was in any way complex - for most folk, it was simply great sport.
So many Paralympic superstars emerged, whereas going into the fortnight, there was only one Paralympic superstar (at least, who was taking part, with due respect to Tanni Grey-Thompson)), and his name was Oscar Pistorius. He was the face of the games, the poster boy, he had done that remarkable thing of crossing over, of being good enough to compete at the Olympics themselves, a powerful symbol which the world had latched onto.
You could tell the games had been built around him as it was his signature race, the 400m, which was the last race on the last night in the stadium. As it turned out, the games really didn't go to plan for him. He was beaten by a Brazilian, Alan Oliveira, in the 200m, and then did not react with good grace at all, then came 4th in the 100m which was won by Jonnie Peacock. But the games did not need him to prosper, so many other new stars were born.
Still, it would have been rather a damp squib had he failed in the 400m, and he did not. He won by an absolute street. And the crowd went wild, and I took a picture on my phone of this authentic pioneer, a picture which I still have, though it feels very weird now. The whole evening - the whole day in fact, as we'd already been to Excel for some volleyball and a few other sports - had been so beautiful. I'll never forget our collective drawing of breath as we emerged into the Olympic stadium with the hot sun gradually going down and the sky a picture behind the roof, looking out on the reality of this beautiful thing they'd created which I'd been watching on TV all summer, this theatre for Bolt and Ennis and Rudisha and Farah and Weir and Whitehead and McFadden and Cockroft. That was it. That was my moment of full pride and justification. Anyone worrying about budget now, complaining about the Olympics now?
My varying prides were manifold. Sport, my dear, dear sport, you defeat your doubters. London, my odd but triumphant city. And also, along with that, a certain odd pride in the small role I'd played myself in trying to make things a bit better for disabled people in London, several years earlier.
Here is this London, this city-wide festival open as any city's ever been for people with disabilities, with the ramps and the access and the getting around, and disabled people, for once, looked up to, noticed, admired, not ignored or, at best, tolerated, sympathised with. I thought back to the book, Access in London
I'd helped research and write, before London had even won the right to host the Olympics, how back then I was a person who cared more about the world (though far more physically lazy than I am now, ironically. All big talk and slow action) and I'd felt like I might be making a difference by assisting Gordon Couch in the writing of the 4th edition of his baby, his act of will, this guidebook to London when people with disabilities really, really, really needed a widespread and tested guidebook to London.
It's still far from perfect, anyone can tell that, but everywhere has to make an effort now, there are ramps, lifts, wheelchair loos everywhere. Well I, my friends, I used to know more about the wheelchair loos of London than pretty much anyone alive. I knew the distance from every bar to every bowl, whether the door swung in or out, whether it had a cord at the right height, hell yeah! It's not all sporting statistics in this head, you know.
So I remembered all that, really a long way in the different world of my past, when the Paralympics came about. I know Gordon tried to bring together another burst of work in advance of the Games and I, amongst others, had not the time or inclination, I'm afraid. I stopped trying to make a difference in the world. I wasn't that kind of volunteer anymore.
Though there were no shortage of other volunteers in London that summer. And, yes, it's true, it's not pat cliche, they were tremendous, they were rays of sunshine, it's all true. Who wouldn't fall in love with that city and its people that summer?
That night, the balmy night, the athletics were great, though oddly short of British success, which pretty much every other night at the games had been full of. But that night was about Oscar, Oscar bringing the house down at the end, his lap of honour. He was the John the Baptist of the whole thing, I thought to myself.
So, of all the shocking news stories, his downfall and his deadly act - whatever the truth of it - was horrible beyond words, sad beyond words. There's nothing else to say on it, especially now, when judgement is pending. I suppose, I thought, the blow it would have been to the Paralympic movement if he had still been its sole figurehead, its sole superstar, would have been vast. But London changed that. Paralympic sport just is, now, and it's, I really think, only going to get more present. It's on TV, it's in the papers, at the Commonwealths it ran alongside the other events with no sense of novelty. It's not niche, not forgotten about. London helped do that.
The weather in 2012 was shocking, if you recall. It was shocking for approximately 48 weeks of the year. But the 4 weeks for which it was glorious were the weeks of the Olympics and then the Paralympics. I went to the three Olympic events - football, swimming and boxing, at pretty high but worthwhile prices, and had also, at Juliette's prompting, booked three or four Paralympic tickets, at fantastically low prices. If they kept it low to make sure the Londoners turned up, it worked in abundance. Packed arenas, the atmosphere just as good as at the Olympics.
Patriotism has never been my thing, far from it, but I don't know if anything has made me prouder of my provenance than how London did those sporting events that summer, how London's glorious embrace of both sporting greatness and of disability took the Paralympic movement into a new area of consciousness, of recognition of it as great sport in and of itself, with an extra something to make it doubly admirable. People saw David Weir, Sarah Storey, Jonnie Peacock, Richard Whitehead etc as sporting superstars full stop. I could tell, there was nothing forced or patronising about it.
It was actually me, me with all my weighing up of worths, with my overthinking of everything, for whom it was in any way complex - for most folk, it was simply great sport.
So many Paralympic superstars emerged, whereas going into the fortnight, there was only one Paralympic superstar (at least, who was taking part, with due respect to Tanni Grey-Thompson)), and his name was Oscar Pistorius. He was the face of the games, the poster boy, he had done that remarkable thing of crossing over, of being good enough to compete at the Olympics themselves, a powerful symbol which the world had latched onto.
You could tell the games had been built around him as it was his signature race, the 400m, which was the last race on the last night in the stadium. As it turned out, the games really didn't go to plan for him. He was beaten by a Brazilian, Alan Oliveira, in the 200m, and then did not react with good grace at all, then came 4th in the 100m which was won by Jonnie Peacock. But the games did not need him to prosper, so many other new stars were born.
Still, it would have been rather a damp squib had he failed in the 400m, and he did not. He won by an absolute street. And the crowd went wild, and I took a picture on my phone of this authentic pioneer, a picture which I still have, though it feels very weird now. The whole evening - the whole day in fact, as we'd already been to Excel for some volleyball and a few other sports - had been so beautiful. I'll never forget our collective drawing of breath as we emerged into the Olympic stadium with the hot sun gradually going down and the sky a picture behind the roof, looking out on the reality of this beautiful thing they'd created which I'd been watching on TV all summer, this theatre for Bolt and Ennis and Rudisha and Farah and Weir and Whitehead and McFadden and Cockroft. That was it. That was my moment of full pride and justification. Anyone worrying about budget now, complaining about the Olympics now?
My varying prides were manifold. Sport, my dear, dear sport, you defeat your doubters. London, my odd but triumphant city. And also, along with that, a certain odd pride in the small role I'd played myself in trying to make things a bit better for disabled people in London, several years earlier.
It's still far from perfect, anyone can tell that, but everywhere has to make an effort now, there are ramps, lifts, wheelchair loos everywhere. Well I, my friends, I used to know more about the wheelchair loos of London than pretty much anyone alive. I knew the distance from every bar to every bowl, whether the door swung in or out, whether it had a cord at the right height, hell yeah! It's not all sporting statistics in this head, you know.
So I remembered all that, really a long way in the different world of my past, when the Paralympics came about. I know Gordon tried to bring together another burst of work in advance of the Games and I, amongst others, had not the time or inclination, I'm afraid. I stopped trying to make a difference in the world. I wasn't that kind of volunteer anymore.
Though there were no shortage of other volunteers in London that summer. And, yes, it's true, it's not pat cliche, they were tremendous, they were rays of sunshine, it's all true. Who wouldn't fall in love with that city and its people that summer?
That night, the balmy night, the athletics were great, though oddly short of British success, which pretty much every other night at the games had been full of. But that night was about Oscar, Oscar bringing the house down at the end, his lap of honour. He was the John the Baptist of the whole thing, I thought to myself.
So, of all the shocking news stories, his downfall and his deadly act - whatever the truth of it - was horrible beyond words, sad beyond words. There's nothing else to say on it, especially now, when judgement is pending. I suppose, I thought, the blow it would have been to the Paralympic movement if he had still been its sole figurehead, its sole superstar, would have been vast. But London changed that. Paralympic sport just is, now, and it's, I really think, only going to get more present. It's on TV, it's in the papers, at the Commonwealths it ran alongside the other events with no sense of novelty. It's not niche, not forgotten about. London helped do that.
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