Tanni Grey-Thompson (pictured below) – she says she still has to stifle a giggle when addressed as Baroness – will be in the BBC radio commentary box when the Paralympic Games begin next Wednesday.

However I imagine I am not alone in hoping that she will be leaving the mic behind for a moment to do the honours when it comes to the Flame-lighting ceremony, for no-one deserves it more.

More than anyone, she has raised the status of disability sport in this country to an unprecedented level where there is such genuine public enthusiasm and support that for the first time in their 52-year history they will be a sell-out.

"I can't wait for them to start, I'm completely exhausted already," she tells me during yet another breathless week charging up and down the country. Have wheelchair will travel, has always been her motto.

"They are going to be amazing but after the Olympics there is such a lot to live up to, and I don't just mean about the medals - the organisation of the Games was just out of this world.

"I am just blown away by the ticket sales for the Paralympics. This time last year you just would have believed it possible that they would sell out. If you look at Atlanta [1996] and even Sydney [2000], not a huge number went and watched them. There were big crowds in Beijing [2008], but they gave the tickets away.

"I have always thought there would be a big support for a Paralympics in London but there's a difference from just turning on the telly to watch them to putting your credit card down and paying to go.

"I don't care if people are coming to the Paralympics because the tickets are cheaper or that they couldn't get them for the Olympics, the point is they're coming, and London 2012 has got the balance exactly right between the two Games. Like the Olympics, these will be the best Paralympics ever.


"What I hope is that also like the Olympics, they will inspire young people to say 'yes I can do it'. I hope that if a young disabled person turns up at an athletics club they might be told 'well, we've never had disabled athletes before but we're going to try and do something with you.' I want these Games to inspire inclusion.

"I also hope then will encourage people be more open-minded and not just look at the disabled and think they are benefit scrounging cheats. They should think to themselves 'that could be me in five years'. "

Apart from her Five Live stint, Tanni she says she will be doing "a few bits and pieces" during the Games. Though she isn't quite sure what.

In view of her iconic status she does seem to have been somewhat under-used in their promotion.

Would she like to have been more involved? "I'm really happy with what I've done up to now. I've sat on a couple of LOCOG (London 2012) committees and made some promotional videos, so it will be nice just to go along and watch, even though I'm working while I'm doing it. I feel quite privileged about that."


There have been times when her relationship with the British Paralympic Association has been prickly, her outspokenness getting up the noses of the Blazers. "The BPA and me have always had differences of opinion and I wasn't always kept in the picture in the past but under this new regime things are brilliant - couldn't be better."

Before the Beijing Games, she had mentored one of Britain's top female wheelchair racers, Shelly Woods (pictured above).

But now she will be cheering on a 16-year-old local girl from Middlesbrough, who, by coincidence is named Jade Jones (pictured below), the same as the young taekwondo gold medallist. She is coached by Tanni's husband Ian and is number four in the world. Icons are always a hard act to follow but there are hopes she may be the new Tanni.

"She's had some amazing races this summer, over 100, 800 and 1,500 metres and she has beaten Shelly just before the Games. She's doing better times now than I did at the height of my career, so, yeah, she could just make it, she's a really smart young girl."

Since retiring from competitive sport five years ago, Cardiff-born Tanni, 43 – who won an unparalleled 11 Paralympic golds, set 30 world records and won six London Marathons - says she is busier than ever. "I am fortunate that I have found so many things to do in life to replace athletics. Nothing can ever be the same after you have competed at such a high level but all this gives me a great buzz – something that is meaningful and, I hope, productive. Life's chaotic these days, but then it always was."


She says it is fortunate that her husband, a doctor of chemistry, sports scientist and coach, is able to work from home and is in a position to look after their ten-year-old daughter Carys.

As Baroness Grey-Thompson of Eaglescliffe she will be wrapping the ermine cloak around her again when she returns to the political fray at the House of Lords in October after the summer recess, warning that from next April, when the benefit cuts to the disabled start taking effect "I shall be very vocal."

She adds: "I know when I get up to speak, as I do quite often, some of them look at me and say 'oh no, not her again!', but that's what I'm there for, to speak up for sport and disabled people. These benefit cuts are going to be just horrible, just horrible, and so unfair."

Britain's greatest Paralympian led a revolt in the Upper House against the Government's Welfare Reform Bill earlier this year was narrowly unsuccessful while earning the admiration of fellow peers, among them Tory Lords Coe (pictured below) and Moynihan."Tanni's a revelation, quite inspirational" says  Coe. "She could have a great future in politics."

Invited two years ago as a People's Peer, Tanni surprisingly elected to sit as a cross-bencher, despite being an ardent lifelong Labour supporter. "It wasn't an easy decision," she admits. "My political views are left of centre but I think there are a lot of advantages of being a cross-bencher because you can vote with your heart, and in any case, I believe sport should be non-political. My passions are sport, women in sport and disabled people, and they kind of end up not being political, so I can put a bit of a different spin on it. I am not  there to spout about things of which I have no previous experience, but I am an ex-athlete, I am a mum and I have a disability so all that combines to give a different perspective.

"It was a deep desire to help make positive changes that first drove me into politics as a student [she has a degree in political sciences from Loughborough University] and this still burns as bright as ever. I've had many challenges in life and sport but going into the House of Lords is probably the greatest ever.

"It was made clear to me when I first joined the House that I was given a couple of years just to learn the ropes but after the Games is the time that I hope to really start making an impact.


"Health is one debate that immediately jumps out. And not just regarding the many problems regarding disability [she has been in a wheelchair since she was seven, having been born with spina bifida]. Change also needs to be instigated in issues ranging from assisted suicide to care in the home and the legacy of London 2012.

"The whole thing about the sports legacy after the Games is going to be interesting particularly the vexing situation on school playing fields. The Games has been the fairy dust, it is not up to Locog to drive any changes forward, it's those in sport themselves, MPs in Parliament and those of us in the House of Lords who speak on sport like Colin, Seb, Baroness Sue Campbell and me who now have a massive role to play, together with people on the governing bodies. They just cannot accept that things are going to continue to happen in the way they have."

She says she would love to be involved in one of those administrative bodies and interestingly there are several situations vacant, with openings for the chairs of a merged UK Sport/Sport England and the British Olympic Association among them. Tanni could fit into either.

"There seems to be some musical chairs going on, which is fascinating. I find sports politics as interesting as real politics.

"Yes, I'd be happy to be given some sort of role, as you know I've always got some opinion on sport,  but whether people want to listen to it, I don't know.

Sir Steve Redgrave is a runner for the BOA chair, as are fellow former gold medallists Sir Matthew Pinsent, David Hemery and hockey's Richard Leman, a close friend of the exiting Lord Moynihan. But with women rising to the top and the Paralympics looking to be a big success, could the bold Baroness emerge as a surprise candidate? It would be an inspired choice.

As would that next week. No-one has done more to light the fires of London's Paralympics which is why surely hers has to be the hand that light the Flame.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.