Gareth Davies

As the year draws to a close, and 2008 dawns, another Paralympic Games year begins. The start of the year marks the most significant five years to date in British Paralympic history. For five Games' cycles, from Soeul to Athens, with Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney in between, the GB team has excelled as a leading nation. How we progress and develop our athletes in the next half-decade could signal whether we maintain our standing as one of the leading Paralympic nations for the next two decades. A generation of leading lights have ended their careers, and we now look for a new group of athletes to carry on the torch. Certainly, since 2004, Britain has remained one of the world's leading lights in promoting Paralympic sport away from the Games, with the flagship Paralympic World Cup event, unparalleled anywhere, set to take place for a forth successive year in Manchester next May. It is the single-most developed multi-disability sports event outside the Games for elite level Paralympians, and it is time other cities stood up and were counted.

With the sponsorship of VISA, and BBC sport coverage - not to mention some pretty decent coverage from most national and regional newspapers - the event has been a resounding success, yet it is high-time Sir Phillip Craven, the President of the International Paralympic Committee, brought his considerable influence to bear and called on at least two other European nations, and possibly China, to host similar Paralympic World Cup events, to create a Paralympic 'Golden League' series of events. Why should Britain be the only nation holding this event up ? Chinese delegates have certainly been to the event, and have sent many athletes to compete in it. One suspects that Britain will continue to host an annual event until 2012, when the Paralympic Games come to London. But what of China next year ? Since Athens in 2004, China has become the world's top Paralympic nation after making rapid progress in disability sport. Arguably, the fact that China has an estimated 80million disabled people means the Beijing Games could have the biggest single influence in improving lives than any other Paralympic Games in the past. In theory. Last year, I travelled to Athens with the BBC's disability affairs/sports officer Tony Garrett. We both spoke of our experiences of feeling proud of the changes in Britain through the impact of the British Paralympic Team on our society, yet we were dismayed to find that in spite of the Paralympic Games having been held in Athens, disability was still a major issue in the society, and indeed, in media coverage. The journalists in Greece felt it wavered between soppy sympathy and a kind of ridicule. We'll just have to see how things pan out in Beijing, but I am expecting controversy. It is just a hunch.

With 9 months to go, Beijing still has some issues over accessibility.
However, with so much of the city being built from scratch, the Chinese are pledging that it will be the world's most disability accessible city by the time the Games start on September 6. Certainly, in competition terms, they have advanced like no other nation. In the 1992 Games in Barcelona, China won only 25 medals and finished 12th in the medal table. However, since the announcement that Beijing would be hosting the
2008 Olympics and Paralympics, they have ploughed money into both able-bodied and disabled sport. The Athens Paralympics was a major watershed for Chinese athletes as they won 141 medals, including 63 gold medals, to top the table. It marked them out as a key player in disability sport, forcing other nations to sit up and take notice. GB were second.

China are likely to dominate in the 20 Paralympic sports in 2008, and other nations will have to battle for gold in other key events. Sir Phil Craven expects the biggest and best Paralympics ever, with 4,000 athletes from 165 countries taking part. Let's hope so, and let's learn from it.

As a footnote, I like this thing about Paralympians in Berlin strutting their stuff in front of the Brandenburg Gate. It says something historic about the role of the Paralympic movement in German society. We should be demanding that once a month, Paralympic sporting events with GB athletes take place in prominent locations, like Trafalgar Square, for casual sports fans, office workers, and tourist to stand and be amazed by. Let's get it moving....