Everyone connected with Paralympic sport recognises that a home Games provides the greatest opportunity we have ever had to shift perceptions of our sport and, as a consequence, of people with a disability in general. 

And with just over two years to go before the ParalympicsGB team steps out into the stadium in London, our plans for making the most of this are well underway. 

Key to this is making household names of the athletes and educating and engaging people in our sport well in advance of the Games. 

We don’t want to wait until August 29, 2012, for the nation to realise what a great sporting spectacle the Paralympic Games are and to get behind ParalympicsGB. We want that to happen now.

We know that once people watch our sport close up, meet the athletes and experience first-hand the excitement of watching Paralympic sport, they become hooked. With fewer competition opportunities than in Olympic sport, events like the BT Paralympic World Cup and this week’s Wheelchair Basketball World Championships are invaluable in giving us the opportunity to showcase and promote the sports and athletes.

And, although we’ve seen an uplift in media interest since Beijing, where only one national newspaper sent a journalist to cover the British team’s exploits, there’s still a long way to go before our athletes get the recognition that their achievements deserve. How many newspapers will carry stories on the Wheelchair Basketball World Championships despite the fact that we were bronze medallists in Beijing?

I was recently asked what was more important, a bucketful of medals in London or a massive shift in awareness and recognition for the Paralympic sport and British team? Guess which way I answered...Of course we won’t stop fighting for every medal, but for us the fight isn’t just about medals, it’s also about awareness and acceptance.

Thankfully, there are a lot of stakeholders that share this vision. Sites like this one are helping to drive interest and prove that there is an appetite for Paralympic stories; LOCOG are determined to move the Games on, as shown by the appointment of Channel Four as the Paralympic Broadcaster and Sainsbury’s as the only Paralympic specific sponsor; Channel Four are putting huge amounts of energy and commitment through all their pre-Games programming and marketing plans; BT have demonstrated their support for the Movement and the British team through the BT Paralympic World Cup; Deloitte supports disability sport right through the pathway, from grass roots to elite. I could go on.

But we will need all of these partners and more to help spread the word about the Paralympic Games and the British team if we are truly to grasp the opportunity a home games presents. With just over two years to go, our report card on raising the profile of the Games and team would say ‘making good progress, but needs to continue to work hard’.

Rest assured we will. 

It’s too good a chance to miss.

Phil Lane is the chief executive of ParalympicsGB