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London lights up for Paralympics

Umbrellas, deaf and disabled artists and guide dogs mark the Paralympics Opening Ceremony.

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Queen Elizabeth II, Professor Stephen Hawking, Sir Ian McKellen, singer Beverley Knight, and the president of the International Paralympic Committee president Sir Philip Craven were all part of the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Paralympic Games today.

The Olympic Stadium lit up once more with performers, fireworks, athletes and guide dogs before a crowd of 80,000.

Hawking and McKellen played prominent roles in the ceremony, which also featured a host of deaf and disabled artists, local children and performers newly-trained in circus skills.

Inspired by uncertain British weather, umbrellas were also a big theme in the ceremony, which was described as “both spectacular and deeply human” by organisers.

The Australian team was led out by five-time Paralympian and wheelchair rugby player Greg Smith, and looked stylish in their checked shirts and green and yellow ties.

Paralympics chief Lord Sebastian Coe told the crowd: “Prepare to be inspired, prepare to be dazzled, prepare to be moved.”

The opening ceremony signalled the start of 11 days of competition by 4,200 athletes from 164 countries.

The first British Paralympic gold medal winner, Margaret Maughan, 84, lit the cauldron.

Coverage of the games in Australia is on ABC1 / ABC2 (more guide info is here).

Source: BBC, ABC

7 Responses

  1. @BigVIc – You can find the entire opening ceremony on youtube.

    I will making use of it to watch it as I had a blonde moment & recorded the wrong channel.

    I had a friend who had new “opportunities” in life thrust upon him due to his mothers use of thalidomide, who was the drummer in the Ian Dury “Spasticus Autisicus” segment and I’m keen on seeing the entire segment rather than 20 sec the ABC played in their highlights show.

  4. @ Bogues…take two. I’ve just looked at the documentation. If you go to the IPC and look for ‘News Access’ rules, the documents offers a couple of exceptions to the ‘exclusive rights rule’:

    Firstly…if the ABC granted Network 9 ‘supplemental’ access, then 9 could show what they did. 9 could have applied to the IPC directly to do this but the footage would have had to come from the ABC as the rights holder. In addition, the footage must be part of a bigger broadcast e.g. the news and not be a Paralympic show per se. The latter was the case here. So…did 9 seek permission and footage from ABC?

    The next is also an exclusion but don’t think applies in the case you mention:
    5. Subject to Paragraph 6 below, in the case of an all-news network, it may utilize Paralympic Material during multiple news broadcasts, as long as the combined time of Paralympic Material shown does not exceed a total of ten (10) minutes per day and does not exceed a total of three (3) minutes in one hour.
    6. Non-Rights Holders may broadcast Paralympic Material in accordance with the other conditions contained in these News Access Rules, as follows:
    a. Upon the conclusion of the day (i.e 24:00 hours) in which the Paralympic event concludes and has been broadcast by the Rights Holder in the specific territory provided that there shall be an interval of at least fifteen (15) hours between the conclusion of the Paralympic broadcast and the news broadcast of such Paralympic event by the Non-Rights Holder;
    b. At such time as may be agreed by the Rights Holder for its particular territory and that particular Paralympic event.

    Broadcasts of Paralympic Material by the Non-Rights Holders shall terminate no later than twenty-four (24) hours after the earliest time at which broadcasts of such Paralympic Material by the Non-Rights Holders may begin.

  5. @Bogues…unsure…when it came to the recently completed Olympics, other commercial channels were allowed to show 8 mins a day. I presume something similar may apply re the Paralympics. However, that ‘live’ aspect may be problematic. The IOC site outlines their rules etc so would be worth a review.

  7. Are the broadcast rules for the paralympics different to the Olympic games? Nine was showing some live coverage on the Today show, which I thought was in breach of IOC broadcast rules.

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