Paralympics
Here's a stat for you:
Number of hours of coverage of the Beijing Olympics on US television: 3,600 (2,900 of which was live)
Number of hours of coverage of the Beijing Paralympics on US television: 1.5 (0 of which is live)
That's right. Of all the US TV channels, there is a single 90 minute highlights in the middle of next month. That's it.
The BBC, incidentally, is showing 5-6 hours live a day (albeit on digital) alongside a nightly one hour highlights package on BBC2, with more live action at the weekend.
In the 2012 London Paralympics, I think it's a fair assumption that the US team will probably include a significant number of athletes who are ex-military and have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Adam. Enjoying your blog. Observer reported this at w'end. "US Paralympics chief Charlie Huebner estimates that, by London 2012, up to 15 per cent of their athletes will come from the military."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/31/paralympics
Thanks for that link.
A BBC News report I saw on the Paralympics in Beijing mentioned that this was important because the disabled are often swept under the carpet in China.
Perhaps we need to look in a different direction to see that to a larger extent?