Team GB legend Tanni Grey-Thompson warns: Don’t forget about the Paralympics

Discussions are ongoing about when best to hold the two Games next year but the Olympics will have the most focus.

And the 11-time Paralympic gold medallist Grey-Thompson said: “Nobody has been particularly talking about the Paralympics. And that’s a shame.

“We all want assurances they will deliver an equal Games.

“Everything in 2012 was about two Games of equality — the same and look and feel. I’d never want a slimmed-down Paralympics.

“It's a chance to rejig the movement and talk to athletes about hopes and expectations.

Tanni Grey-Thompson

“The decision should involve competing athletes, Olympic and Paralympic. Quite often they aren’t asked their opinion.

“They should have a voice, especially in stuff like this.

“This is a chance to rejig the movement and talk to athletes about what their hopes and expectations are. Of course, they had no other option to delay.

“Pushing it back to the end of the year wouldn’t have been helpful. We don’t know what the pandemic will look like then.

“They couldn’t have the Paralympics in November because the weather in Japan at that time isn’t brilliant either.”

Lady Grey-Thompson, a retired wheelchair racer, has been in the House of Lords this week scrutinising the emergency COVID-19 legalisation being rushed through by the Government.

All being well the likes of wheelchair athlete Hannah Cockroft, 27, amputee sprinter Jonnie Peacock, 26, and swimmer Ellie Simmonds, 25, will be the stars in Tokyo next year.

But several members of the GB team will be affected by the enforced lockdown and the spread of the virus if they have underlying health issues.

Grey-Thompson, 50, said: “Some of the people who compete at the Paralympics, because of their impairments, would be considered in a category more vulnerable.
“Though they are fit and healthy as sportspeople, they would still be in that category.
“There are some athletes who will have personal support needs. That’s all up in the air.
“For disabled people at the moment, it’s a worrying and difficult time.
“Everyone has to try to stay fit and healthy and keep training as much as they can. But for many training will be very difficult to do now.
“I’ve not known anything even close to this in my career. There were discussions round SARS and Zika before Rio – but that wasn’t any near this kind of level.
“Look, I’m in the Jurgen Klopp camp here. Sport is one of the most important things of things which aren’t important.
“But sport also pulls people together in really difficult times.
“It would be nice to have something to look forward to this year. But a lot of athletes didn’t want to travel now.
“Moving the Games back was not ideal. There will be people hanging on who could have just got through this year. But it was the right decision.”