Channel 4 is to broadcast live coverage of this year’s BT Paralympic World Cup, after securing the rights at the expense of the BBC.
The broadcaster will offer two hours of live coverage on the final day of the event 28 May, with highlights programmes on 26 and 27 May and daily live coverage on its website.
Channel 4 has already promised to make its wall-to-wall coverage of the London 2012 Paralympics the “biggest event” in its history, after beating the BBC to the UK television broadcasting rights.
Now it has also beaten the BBC to the rights for the world cup, which takes place in Manchester from 23-28 May.
ParalympicsGB, which manages Britain’s Paralympians, said Channel 4 would “provide the event with the strongest broadcast coverage it has ever received on UK television”.
The event will feature wheelchair basketball, athletics and swimming, with boccia and sitting volleyball included for the first time. Britain will take on teams from Europe, the Americas and the Rest of the World.
Phil Lane, ParalympicsGB’s chief executive, said athletes hoping to compete in 2012 would have the chance to compete in “a crucial world-class competition that will be a key indicator in their performances”.
Meanwhile, the London 2012 organising committee LOCOG has announced its programme of events for testing venues to be used in next year’s Paralympics and Olympics.
The line-up includes events covering four Paralympic sports – wheelchair tennis, archery, boccia and athletics – which will all take place in early May 2012.
They include the London Disability Athletics Grand Prix, which will take place in the Olympic Stadium on 8 May 2012.
A wheelchair rugby event in the Olympic Park’s Basketball Arena has yet to be confirmed.
Lord [Seb] Coe, chair of LOCOG, said: “When the world’s greatest Olympic and Paralympic athletes come to London in the summer of 2012, every aspect of our delivery needs to be the best it can be.
“The invaluable experience we gain through our testing programme means we can ‘road-test’ all our operational plans and make sure we have all the knowledge we need to deliver a truly memorable games in 2012.”
24 February 2011
UN debate will be reminder of true inclusive education