I was lucky enough to attend this year’s BT Paralympic World Cup in May in my role of commentator for the BBC. Obviously, I spent most of my time on the wheelchair basketball coverage but was also fortunate to be at Bank Holiday Monday’s live swimming event as well.

This year’s competition seems to have been a stunning success and BT as sponsors, plus everyone else involved in pulling it together, must be delighted. 

To have 5,500 people down to the athletics event on the opening day is a real achievement and it was fantastic to hear that this is the record for a live crowd at a disability athletics event in Britain.  

Within the crowds that attended over the course of the week, totalling near 15,000 people, it was very encouraging to see so many young people.  It’s so important to make sure younger generations are informed about disability sport and the BT Paralympic World Cup offers them the opportunity to see the top athletes compete in a variety of paralympic sport. 

I hope that in a few years we’ll see the benefits of a new generation of people who are armed with knowledge about Paralympic sport and realise the quality and talent of those involved.  It would be great to not only see this boost crowds but also increase the numbers of people participating in disability sport at all levels.

One thing I noticed this year is that the athletes at the BT Paralympic World Cup were all taking the event very seriously. Sometimes, athletes can use these competitions as warm-ups for other events so it is testament to this event that it has grown enough in significance that it is now a major fixture in the yearly calendar for paralympic sport.  It is clear that athletes and teams want to win there.  A lot of athletes also seemed to be making a statement - it’s only a little over two years until the Paralympic Games in London 2012 and both GB and international athletes want to get into the winning habit.

From the events I saw, I was very impressed by the Canadian and GB wheelchair basketballers. Members and staff of both the Canadian and Australian teams that I spoke to were loving the event and the fact that they are prepared to travel so far for this competition demonstrates how important it is to them. 

The GB men won gold this year, which was the first time they’ve won the competition since 2005, when I last played at the event.  They seem to have a nice balance of both youth and experience within the team and hopefully their success at the BT Paralympic World Cup can be carried to future competitions and on to London 2012. 



However, whilst I naturally focus on the wheelchair basketball element, there were plenty of other great achievements for athletes in the week.  When I was at the swimming event I witnessed four world records being broken amidst an incredible atmosphere. It was also great to see fellow BT Ambassador Oscar Pistorius offer so much support to the event.  His global profile can only be good for paralympic sport and to have him at the BT Paralympic World Cup, and see him win gold medals, also shows how much importance he places on racing there.

Overall, I just hope that the growth in interest in this year’s BT Paralympic World Cup signals the fact that people are beginning to realise the excellent entertainment value and quality of elite level disability sport.  If this can continue to grow over the next few years, it will make for a very exciting and well supported Paralympic Games in London in 2012.

Ade Adepitan, a member of Britain's wheelchair basketball team that won a bronze medal at the Paralympics in Athens in 2004, is a BT Ambassador.  BT is the official communications services partner for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and title sponsor of the BT Paralympic World Cup.

Picture: Action Images/Paul Thomas