Britain creates program to find new talent for 2012 Paralympics

From The Telegraph in the UK:

Results at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing show that a third of Britain’s medallists had been part of a world-class elite programme for less than two years and 15 of the British gold medals were won by first-time Paralympians.

UK Sport and ParalympicsGB, the governing body for Paralympic sport, yesterday announced a nationwide talent drive launched to find British Paralympic champions with 'Talent 2012: Paralympic Potential’. The aim is to recruit athletes into specific sporting programmes next year. A campaign of this magnitude so close to a Games is unprecedented.

Athletes face higher profile Chelsea Warr, head of athlete development at UK Sport, said: “The ability to achieve a Paralympic gold medal is a rare commodity and identifying those capable of doing so in the final 1,000 days before 2012 will be no easy task. It is possible however, as results at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing have shown, that with hard work, dedication and the right coaching set up, we can make someone’s dream a reality.”

The campaign is open to athletes aged between 15 and 35 with any form of impairment. Phil Lane, chief executive of ParalympicsGB, said: “While we have come second in the medal table at the past four Games, there are many events that we simply haven’t been able to field an athlete in.

“With the competition getting tougher all the time it is vital that we have explored all avenues to recruit new athletes.”

The London Organising Committee (Locog) will oversee major events today marking 1000 days to the start of the Paralympic Games, from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, where a group of Paralympic archers will shoot arrows across the Meridian Line. New Paralympic pictograms will be unveiled and five-a-side football with visually impaired players competing will take place in the grounds of the National Maritime Museum.

There is a rosy glow about Paralympic plans at Locog. Work is under way to create a Paralympic ticketing strategy to fill the 2012 venues, and a Games mobility service that will be the most advanced ever for disabled spectators at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, is being put together.

Locog’s key priorities in the next year will include the development of an awareness campaign to educate the British public about Paralympic sport.

British Paralympic athletes are now among the best funded in the world. This is good news for competitors like Eleanor Simmonds, the swimmer who, aged 13, became the youngest Briton to race to Paralympic gold in Beijing. She will be 17 years-old in London. Fazed? Not a bit.

“I deal with pressure really well, I just think about how I do and keep training hard,” she said.

Wheelchair racer David Weir, who won two gold medals in Beijing, expects London – his fourth Games – to be his final bow. “My mind and my body are telling me I’ve got one left. But I want to make it a great one,” the Briton said.

Matthew Cowdrey, the Australian swimmer who won five gold medals in Beijing, said: “British athletes are brilliantly funded. “They really are in a great place.”

New research released today by the Government’s Office for Disability Issues indicates that over half (56 per cent) of disabled people surveyed thought the whole of the UK would benefit from the Games, not just London.