The Olympics and Paralympics may be done and dusted but together with the golden glow of the aftermath, the spirit of 2012 lingers on. Not least among sport's little people.

I have written here before about the merits of the Panathlon and make no apology for doing so again, for in times when we are satiated by big-time sport, its greed and its scandals, it is heartening how a worthy event brutally kicked in the whatsits by a political football keeps bouncing back.

Testimony of this is that last week 162 disabled schoolchildren from seven English counties competed at Stoke Mandeville Stadium, birthplace of the Paralympic Games, in a special double edition of the Panathlon Challenge.

Berkshire won gold for the second consecutive year, while a dramatic finish saw Oxfordshire clinch victory in their first ever Panathlon – a "mini Paralympics" for these kids.


Not that you will have seen this reported in the national media, or that the Panathlon people would have expected it to be.

They have been quietly soldiering on since the then six-year-old Panathlon – the Greek word for a group of sporting disciplines – virtually went to the wall in 2005 when the Labour Government pulled the plug on its funding fearing it might diminish Prime Minister Gordon Brown's "baby", the UK School Games.

The original highly popular Panathlon Challenge, for both able-bodied and disabled youngsters, had been born out of concern for the alarming decline in competitive sport in schools nationwide.

The schools had been selected for the event because of their lack of sports facilities or a comprehensive sports programme.

The entire venture looked a basket case. But thanks to the perseverance, hard work and the commercial endeavours of its former chairman John Hymers and current director Ashley Iceton it managed to struggle on, concentrating solely on its disability aspect, thanks to a couple of charities, providing such unrivalled opportunities in sport for disabled youngsters that it won a Sportsmatch Award.

Now Panathlon provides multisport competitions for over 3,000 disabled children each year. Over 200 schools are involved in 2013, with 15,000 active hours of sport provided to disabled children.


Initially focused across London and the southeast, the charity is now branching out to provide sport to hundreds more kids across the country through events like that at Stoke Mandeville, run in association with the English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS), of which Panathlon is a member.

"Panathlon are doing a fabulous job and we are just delighted to be working with them and seeing the benefits that it brings," EFDS chairman Charles Reed says. "Their events are always very inspirational, great fun and they send a lot of people away with big smiles on their faces."

The ultimate aim is to get every child, regardless of their disability into a multitude of sports.

The Panathlon would like to expand to beyond its current areas of activities but as Iceton says: "We gets lots of requests to run the Challenge from all over the country but we are a relatively small charity and are having to turn people away because we don't have a pot of cash to do more."

He is one of two full-time organisers, with two part-timers and hundreds of volunteers. "We tend to concentrate on the most physically impaired kids and those with considerable learning difficulties," he told insidethegames.

The Challenge features a number of Paralympic sports though there is no actual pathway through to the Paralympics. However, the hope is that some might make it eventually.

"It is not really about talent ID," Iceton explained. "It is about kids who are missing out as they have no other access to any sport.

"We still find an attitude in some schools of 'well, these kids can't do this' but we come along and say 'actually, yes they can' and we arrange for them to be bussed to a sports centre or to play against another school."

One of the most admirable aspects of the Panathlon is that it encourages able-bodied schoolchildren to train as coaches or officials for their less able counterparts. "The response from youngsters wanting to do this has been fantastic," says Iceton. "Some now even run the events."

The past seven years have seen a relentless pursuit for funding via sponsorship or charitable donations and Iceton's team have managed to produce the goods for an average annual budget of under £300,000 ($455,000/€353,000).


This included a BoJo bonus – London Mayor Boris Johnson chipping in some £83,000 ($126,000/€98,000) before the Olympics from his Sports Legacy Plan which has gone towards helping disabled athletes aged between eight and 18 to compete in designer sports such as boccia, bean bag throwing, table cricket, new age kurling, polybat, football and athletics.

This windfall was engineered by the former Labour Sports Minister Kate Hoey, who is the Mayor's Commissioner for Sport. She has always been a great Panathlon supporter and with current Tory Sports Minister Hugh Robertson tabled a protest motion in Parliament when her Government stopped the funding. She says: "I try every year to come to a Panathlon event and it just seems to get bigger and better than ever. Without Panathlon, many of these children would not get a chance to take part in any sort of sporting activity, so I'm very keen. Investing in the Panathlon Challenge is something that has proved that it works and it is run very well. For a very small amount of money you can make a lot of young people and a lot of families very happy."

Among those helping to inspire disabled youngsters to get involved in sport themselves is Paralympian swimming star Liz Johnson, now Panathlon's official ambassador.


Johnson, 27, who has a gold, silver and bronze medal from the last three Paralympic Games, recently attended the central London final at the Westway Sports Centre, tucked underneath the A40 flyover, a world away from the Olympic Park's Aquatic Centre where she won her s SB6 100 metres breaststroke bronze last year. She said: "I always love to come down to Panathlon. There is so much going on and the kids get so much out of it.

"The best thing about Panathlon is that it gives kids then opportunity to try competitive sports they might not otherwise get in their school environment. It makes sport accessible for these children to obtain those kinds of skills.

"Sport did so much for me. It opened so many doors. It helped me realise so much potential and skills outside of swimming. Panathlon provides that opportunity for everybody to have that accessibility and hopefully gain something, which is why it's so important."

However, as Iceton points out: "Since the Paralympics though people have greater understanding of disability sport my phone hasn't been ringing from big sponsors wanting to come on board."

So is there any chance of renewed funding via Government agencies? It seems unlikely.

"Things are better under the Coalition with the money being put into primary schools but for us the problem is how to access that money," says Iceton. "To get any funding out of Sport England we have to create bids for certain age groups and there is a lot hassle involved. It is all rather blurred so we haven't gone down that route."


Had Paralympic icon Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson been given the Sport England chair doubtless she would have had a natural empathy with the Panathlon cause. Let's hope new incumbent Nick Bitel will take a fresh look at the situation, and favourably consider some of the Panathlon achievements worthy reward:

• 2,375 disabled competitors in 2013 so far – will be way over 3,000 by summer

• 301 schools involved to date – special, primary and secondary with mainstreamed children

• 53 competitions planned during academic year 2012-2013

• Will be 20,000 plus active hours of participation by end of summer

• 12 counties involved outside London, most "home" counties but now as far away as Wiltshire, Merseyside, and new this year, Middlesbrough

• 356 Young Leaders trained and qualified in a range of sports

• New sports included this year for the first time, swimming, VI football and wheelchair tennis

As Iceton adds: "There is no-one else out there doing what we are doing. For these kids it is their only opportunity to get involved in sport. However, we could do so much more if we had more investment."

Quite. If not Sport England, is there a philanthropic corporate sponsor with few bob to spare that hasn't already been spent on prawn sandwiches for the VIP punters in the hospitality boxes?

The All-London London Panathlon Final takes place on June 19 at Westway Sports Centre, 1 Crowthorne Road, London W10 6RP between 11am and 2.30pm.

Alan Hubbard is a 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 Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.