With just 9 days to go before the opening ceremony we are now on the home straight to London. Individual and team preparations continue and the focus now starts to turn towards entry into the village and the final training sessions in London. You will have seen that the media build up has started and we are getting many, many calls on a daily basis which our partners Onshore are handling very effectively. Some of you may have seen Ross Morrison front up the National Lottery on Saturday which was an excellent piece – well done to him and we can expect a great deal more over the coming days and weeks. Certainly you should now be following C4 whose Paralympic coverage enters the next stage from tonight with a evening programme hosted by Jon Snow each night at 7.30pm. He will cover all the sports and there will be some good stuff on rugby. Next weekend ahead of the opening of the games we can also expect the weekend newspapers and magazines to be full of the Paralympics. In his column in this weekend’s Sunday Times, Sir Clive Woodward encouraged everyone to get behind the GB wheelchair rugby team, and I have also had contact from some of the current England rugby team. Everyone tells me that rugby tickets are gold dust with everyone wanting one – so if you have one – hang on to it tightly – it is the ticket of the games! Meanwhile as the squad move from Norfolk, a big thank you to all who have supported us so well up there, especially William, Emma and Lavinia at Norfolk Friendly Disabled Cottages, the team from Lynnsport, and our caterers, Jackie and Graham…the excitement grows!
David Pond
