Hosting the Paralympic Games on home soil is something that I always wanted to happen because of everything else I believe it could bring. The opportunity to continue to raise the profile of disability sport, to help increase participation, and also have a wider benefit for disabled people.  

LOCOG has always been ambitious in its aims and very clear in where they want the Games to be. London 2012 has already provided many positive steps forward. Cities bidding for these Games, had for the first time, to bid for both Games.

And now for the first time the Organising Committee was able to sell the television right whereas at previous Games they were sold by the International Paralympic Committee. LOCOG don’t make any money out of this, the money is ploughed back in to providing the coverage of the Games.

As a retired athlete I know that I have a lot to thank the BBC for, as in the last 30 years, the media coverage has improved significantly. The Games were covered in different ways in the early years, but after Seoul in 1988 there was an hour highlights programme, narrated by Cliff Morgan.  Up until 1987 he had been head of Sport and Outside Broadcasts for the BBC, and brought a certain gravitas to coverage that perhaps previously had been a little more more ad hoc.

Barcelona in 1992 put the Games on the map. I remember being near the finish line for the men’s 5 000 metres wheelchair final when there was a momentous crash going in to the bell lap. Broken chairs and athletes were everywhere. Helen Rollason, with a BBC cameraman, was nearby and I rushed over to her and asked could I watch a playback so that I could see who caused the crash. 

She asked did I think it was okay to show it on the programme, and my resounding response was, "yes", because it had been a bike race it would have been everywhere. They showed my sport for what it was, fast, a bit dangerous, and a million miles away from a bunch of disabled people having a go.

So, although by the time we got to Beijing in 2008, there were daily highlights programmes, results made the news, and of course it was all over the radio, I didn’t really think that we would get to a point where there was a "highly competitive tender process" for the TV rights. 

This shows how far the Games have moved on and Channel 4 have now won the rights to cover the Games in 2012.

In 2012 there will be an unprecedented amount of coverage, around 150 hours – this is something that a home Games can help deliver. The challenge going forward and part of the plan is to bring stories to life; to showcase the best of Paralympic sport and its athletes, and deliver a different kind of coverage. 

It’s potentially a big change but also I believe where there is change there is opportunity. I am delighted that the coverage is staying on terrestrial TV,  and as ever it brings another opportunity for the Paralympic Movement.

Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson is Britain's best known athletes having won a total of 16 Paralympic medals, 11 of them gold. Since retiring in 2007 she has forged a reputation as one of the country's leading sports administrators and her roles currently include being a non-executive director of UK Athletics, sitting on the board of the London Marathon and advising Transport for London on preparations for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. She is also vice-chairman of the Laureus World Sport Academy and a trustee of the Sport for Good Foundation