2012 Summer Paralympics
The 2012 Summer Paralympics, branded as the London 2012 Paralympic Games, were an international multi-sport parasports event held from 29 August to 9 September 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. They were the 14th Summer Paralympic Games as organised by the International Paralympic Committee.
These Games were the first Summer Paralympics to be hosted by London and the first to be hosted solely by Great Britain. The English village of Stoke Mandeville had previously co-hosted the 1984 Games with Long Island, New York, after the original host—the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign—withdrew due to financial difficulties. In 1948, the village hosted the Stoke Mandeville Games—the first organised sporting event for athletes with disabilities, and a precursor to the modern Paralympic Games—to coincide with the opening of the 1948 Olympics in London. In 1935, London hosted the 1935 Summer Deaflympics.
Because Parasports is a cultural factor of great impact in Great Britain, the organisers expected the Games to be the first Paralympics to achieve mass-market appeal, fuelled by continued enthusiasm over Great Britain's performance during the Olympics, awareness of Great Britain's role in the history of the Paralympics, the presence of the first global Paralympic star in history – the South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius, and increasing media coverage and promotion of Paralympic sport. The Games ultimately met these expectations, breaking records for ticket sales, heightening the profile of the Paralympics in relation to the Olympics, and prompting IPC president Philip Craven to declare them the "greatest Paralympic Games ever."
A total of 503 events in 20 sports were held during the Games; events for athletes with intellectual disabilities returned to the Paralympic programme after being suspended following the 2000 Summer Paralympics, The Games were contested by a record 4,243 athletes representing 164 National Paralympic Committees, with 14 countries making their Paralympic debut. For the third Summer Paralympics in a row, China won the most medals overall, with a total of 231, followed by Russia and Great Britain.
Bidding process
As part of a formal agreement between the International Paralympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee established in 2001, the winner of the bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics was also to host the 2012 Summer Paralympics. At the 117th IOC Session in Singapore, the rights to host the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics were awarded to London.Development and preparation
As with the Olympics, the 2012 Summer Paralympics were overseen by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Olympic Delivery Authority. LOCOG was responsible for overseeing the staging of the games, while the ODA dealt with infrastructure and venues.The Government Olympic Executive within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport was the lead Government body for co-ordinating the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. The GOE reported through the DCMS Permanent Secretary to the Minister for Sports and the Olympics Hugh Robertson. It focused on oversight of the Games, cross-programme management and the London 2012 Olympic Legacy.
England's role in the history of the Paralympics was emphasised as part of the Games: an event known as the Stoke Mandeville Games were hosted by the village of Stoke Mandeville—site of the National Spinal Injuries Centre—to coincide with the opening of the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. Contested between British veterans of the Second World War, it was the first organised sporting event for athletes with disabilities, and served as a precursor to the modern Paralympic Games.
Venues and infrastructure
The 2012 Summer Paralympics used many of the same venues as the 2012 Summer Olympics, along with two exclusive venues ( Eton Manor for wheelchair tennis and Brands Hatch circuit for road cycling. All the London's purpose-built Olympic venues and facilities, including the Olympic Village, were designed and planned to be accessible as possible so they could easily accommodate the Paralympics. Some older venues also contained additional accessible seating areas during the Paralympics.Public transport
operated the Paralympic Route Network to facilitate road traffic between venues and facilities. The network provided of lanes specifically reserved for Paralympic athletes and officials. TfL continued to operate its Get Ahead of the Games website during the Paralympics, which provided updates and advice for commuters during the Games. Prior to the Games, concerns were raised by TfL commissioner Peter Hendy that London's transportation system might not be able to handle the Paralympics adequately. He feared that the end of the school summer holiday would result in increased traffic, and that commuters might not heed traffic warnings or change their travel behaviour as they had during the Olympics.Sevenoaks railway station was designated as the preferred station for spectators travelling to watch the cycling at Brands Hatch. Organisers chose Sevenoaks over the closer Swanley railway station because of its "existing step-free access and excellent transport links", and because Swanley did not yet have a wheelchair lift. Whilst organisers did not believe that Swanley would be able to have wheelchair lifts installed by the start of the Paralympics, the station finished their installation by early August 2012.
Lead-up and promotion
Handover ceremony
The formal handover occurred during the closing ceremony of the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, when Mayor of London Boris Johnson received the Paralympic Flag from Mayor of Beijing Guo Jinlong. This was followed by a cultural presentation by Britain, which was a which was a sequel to the presentation during the Antwerp Ceremony during the Olympics closing ceremonies. It featured urban dance group ZooNation, the Royal Ballet, and Candoco, a physically integrated dance group, all dressed as London commuters and waiting for a bus by a zebra crossing. A double-decker bus drove around the stadium, guided by Ade Adepitan, to music composed by Philip Sheppard. The top of the bus was open and folded down to show a privet hedge featuring London landmarks such as Tower Bridge, The Gherkin and the London Eye. Cherisse Osei, drummer for Mika, and Sam Hegedus then performed, before the top of the bus folded up into its original form,sporting multi-coloured Paralympic livery. Both the Paralympic and Olympic flags were formally raised outside of London's City Hall on 26 September 2008. British Paralympians Helene Raynsford and Chris Holmes raised the Paralympic flag.Paralympic Day and Super Saturday
On 8 September 2011 Trafalgar Square staged International Paralympic Day, hosted by Rick Edwards, Ade Adepitan and Iwan Thomas, to coincide with a visit to London by representatives of the IPC. The event featured showcases and demonstrations of the 20 sports that would feature during the Games, with some sessions also made inclusive to people with hearing disabilities. It also included appearances by Paralympic athletes Oscar Pistorius, Ellie Simmonds and Sascha Kindred, and the unveiling of a bronze statue of Pistorius by Ben Dearnley. British Prime Minister David Cameron and London's mayor Boris Johnson also appeared.Two days later on 10 September, supermarket chain Sainsbury's and Channel 4 presented Sainsbury's Super Saturday, a family event at Clapham Common. The event featured showcases of Paralympic sports, and a concert featuring pop music acts including Nicola Roberts, Olly Murs, The Wanted, Will Young, Pixie Lott, Dappy, Sugababes, The Saturdays, Chipmunk and Taio Cruz.
Channel 4 promotional campaign
the new local broadcaster of the 2012 Summer Paralympics in the United Kingdom—held a multi-platform advertising campaign to promote its coverage. The broadcaster sought to change the public perception of the Paralympics, encouraging viewers to see them as an "event in its own right", rather than as an afterthought to the Olympics. The campaign included television adverts, online content, and billboard advertising, some of which carrying the infamous slogan "Thanks for the warm-up".As part of the campaign, Channel 4 produced a two-minute-long trailer for its coverage entitled Meet the Superhumans, which was directed by Tom Tagholm with input from Deborah Poulton, 2012 Paralympic Project Leader and Alison Walsh, Editorial Manager of Disability, both at Channel 4. The trailer, set to Public Enemy's song "Harder Than You Think", focused on the competitive and "superhuman" aspects of Paralympic sport, while acknowledging the personal events and struggles that reflected every athlete's participation in the Games. Meet the Superhumans premiered on 17 July 2012, airing simultaneously on 78 different commercial television channels in the UK.
The advert was met with critical acclaim: Adweek Tim Nudd declared it "the summer's most stunning sports commercial", while Simon Usborne of The Independent felt it was "an act of branding genius" and "a clear bid to bring the Paralympics from the sporting wings to centre stage." The advert was seen by an estimated audience of 10 million viewers; Channel 4's marketing and
communications chief Dan Brooke estimated that reaction to the advert through social media was double that of the première of the BBC's trailer for its Olympics coverage.
Meet the Superhumans won a Golden Lion award at the Cannes Lions Festival in June 2013, losing the overall award to the railway safety PSA Dumb Ways to Die. Sir John Hegarty, the jury president said of it: "When you've got some really outstanding work it is tragic in some ways it can't get a bigger award, but there can only be one grand prix", while jury member Carlo Cavallone added " is an amazing campaign, one of the golds that went through immediately... Everyone felt it had the highest level of craft. It puts an issue that was really important before London 2012 to raise awareness of the Paralympics they were hyper successful … Dumb Ways to Die was a tough contender."