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	TX: 12.09.08 - Paralympics Halfway Update PRESENTERS: LIZ BARCLAY AND PETER WHITE

	Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 麻豆约拍 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. BARCLAY Now it's the end of week one in the Paralympics with a fantastic haul of medals Team GB is in second place behind China in the medals table. Peter is there reporting for us and you may remember that this time last week he predicted that the Paralympics team might struggle to keep up the momentum of its Olympic counterpart. He joins us. Peter, how accurate would you say your crystal ball gazing has been? WHITE Well not quite as accurate as I would have liked, although it's good news really. I mean at the moment we really are more than punching our weight. We're a clear second in the gold medal table and we're much closer to the Chinese ahead of us than we are to the US behind us. So we're second in the top three. We had 32 golds, the last I heard before I came in here, China about four or five ahead of us but it's changing by the minute. So remember we were aiming for 35, so I might have to eat my words I think. PARALYMPICS CLIPS She's just about ahead, the crowd are on their feet, the flags are waving, I think she'd done it. Oh my word, Eleanor Simmons, at 13 years old, has just won gold for Great Britain. Look at the smile on her face, she can't believe it. Five and a half seconds to the good and this is a procession - it's a golden procession - and it's another golden route to the line for British cycling, the latest star is Jody Cundy. Very first ever gold in a Paralympic rowing event goes to Great Britain, to Helene Raynesford. She led the race from the very start, she was more than 12 seconds clear with 250 metres to go and slowly, relentlessly, determinedly in this arms only single sculls class Helene Raynesford has claimed the gold for Great Britain. WHITE Wins there in the pool, on the cycle track and the rowing lake. And just to prove how instant this is our gold medal tally has gone up to 33 since I came in here, so there you go. BARCLAY Well that's definitely good news straight from the - hot off the press. Well what about the reaction, Peter, of the Chinese people to these games, the crowds for instance? WHITE Oh the crowds have been - I'd still like to put in a word of caution actually about these medals because we might already have had a lot of our best chances, so you do have to be a bit careful about it. The crowds really have been fantastic because I mean I was in the stadium this morning at 9 o'clock this morning and there were about 30,000 in there for a very important rerun but actually the whole thing has been - I mean it's been packed a couple of times and that means you've got 91,000 people in there. Now imagine in the old days at this kind of tournament you'd have been watching it with three people, a guide dog possibly and about 60 carers. Just imagine how the Paralympic athletes feel now because they're performing in front of huge crowds that international athletes would be very happy to perform. And as well as the stadium - the water cube's been full every night, good crowds at the cycling, loads of people flocking into wheelchair tennis, great crowds at the basketball. And another great sign of success, Liz, the China Daily this morning told us that 139 ticket touts - they call them scrapers here - had been detained. Now if that doesn't prove demand I don't know what does. BARCLAY Well you sound as if you're enjoying yourself too. Now we've heard about the medals, we've also heard about the Irish athlete Derek Malone, who was disqualified for not being disabled enough, what else has been making the headlines? WHITE Yeah well Malone of course was part of the Irish cerebral palsy football team, who was judged to be too able, he's had to leave the team and he's not the only one upset about classification because there is this darker side to the Paralympics, I have to say, and it's the usual suspects - classification and drugs. Just to explain why classification is so difficult. To ensure like disability competes with like there are very strict rules about these classes and there are over 60 of them - the classes - taking in people who use wheelchairs, amputees, athletes with cerebral palsy, visually-impaired people but there are always disputes, partly about whether someone is competing in a category too high or too low for them, sometimes about amalgamating categories because there aren't enough athletes of suitable quality to make a good race. Only two days ago a Russian football team of players with cerebral palsy beat the Dutch 12/1 and the Dutch coach is not pleased and convinced that there are players in the Russian team who not just have - possibly don't have cerebral palsy as badly as they say but could play professionally. So he's questioning whether all of them are in the right category, as opposed to the very good footballer category, which doesn't actually exist. All very reminiscent of the Spanish basketball team, you know where players posed as having learning disabilities and ended by getting genuine learning disabled athletes excluded from the Paralympics. So it's got serious implications. But for Phil Craven, the British President of the International Paralympic Committee, classification has always and will always cause problems but there's no alternative to it. CRAVEN I'm happy with the concept that there are several categories because the whole principle of classification is to be fair to each athlete and as you know that if you have - I don't know - well you can't have wheelchairs running against amputees, I mean they'll kill them and they'll beat them, except in the 100 and 200 metres. So you've got to have different categories and you've got to make it fair. And that's the whole principle of classification. WHITE Phil Craven there. But I don't think they've really succeeded in making it fair yet, they've got more work to do on that. BARCLAY Okay but Peter you mentioned drugs, what's going on there? WHITE Well there are always drug cases Liz. I'm sure a lot of people think oh those nice disabled people, they wouldn't do things like that, they wouldn't use drugs - they do, at every Paralympics I've been at. This time there are four cases so far, three pretty conventional - power lifters, they're like weight lifters, though it's more like bench pressing, they've tested positive for banned substances, steroid related. One really odd one though - a German basketball player who's been caught using a drug which combats baldness. Now the trouble is that's not an offence, there isn't a bald category in the Paralympics but the trouble with this drug is it also masks steroids and I'm afraid this goes with the territory. And I have to tell you some disabled athletes aren't that sorry about it because talking privately they'll tell you that'll knock the idea that this is a bit of fun and good for our therapy. So make no mistake this is serious sport and cheating is a part of it I'm afraid. BARCLAY Well Peter thank you very much for that and we'll be paying special attention to your hairstyle when you come back. 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