2008 Olympics Updates

Here in Beijing, there's no sign of Olympic fever abating. Chinese Television is still re-running highlights from the Games; crowds still gather around the perimeter of the Olympic Green to have their photos taken with a backdrop of the Bird's Nest Stadium and there seems to be an Olympic souvenir store on every street corner doing a roaring trade. Even at Beijing Zoo, sales of the panda-like mascots seem as popular as visits to the real life Giant Pandas!

With the Opening Ceremony taking place next Saturday, Beijing is ready for Paralympic fever to take over. No sign yet of Paralympic souvenirs but the first tangible signs were the replacement a few days ago of all the Olympic banners that line the streets of the city with the Paralympic versions. Street signs have changed too with directions to Paralympic venues instead. For 'Olympic Village' read 'Paralympic Village'.

When the Olympic medal table is swapped for the Paralympic version, it's a near certainty that China will again top the table. They did so four years ago in Athens, so for the rest of the world, it's a question of who will come second. Great Britain has come second for the last two Games. In Athens they won 35 Golds with a medals total of 94 and have been set a Beijing target by UK Sport of winning 112 medals. A stiff challenge! With Team GB having exceeded their Olympic medals target and achieved their best performance for a hundred years, one wonders how much extra pressure this puts on Paralympics GB.

In particular, the spotlight will be turned on athletics and swimming. Swimming have been set a lower target this time around, 41 as opposed to 52 medals won four years ago. The opposite is the case for Athletics who are expected by UK Sport to win 13 more medals than their Athens achievement of 17. They are hoping stars like David Weir can become multi-medallists and returning champions such as Danny Crates can repeat their Athens success. In swimming, David Roberts will be hoping to add to his tally of gold medals and beat Tanni Grey-Thompson's record of 11 gold medals. The pressure, however, will be on all 206 athletes competing in 18 sports to deliver. Public interest and expectation will again be high with London 2012 on the horizon; a challenge for the team and for the BBC.

Following the successes of our Olympic coverage, our aim across all of the BBC's output must be to put in a 'Team BBC' performance that does full justice to those of the athletes. We aim to feature the achievements of Paralympics GB and many of the other performances by the world's top Paralympians; athletes such as South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius and swimmer Natalie Du Toit. Three distinguished former Paralympians join the BBC team for the Games - 11 time Paralympic Gold medallist Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, wheelchair basketball bronze medallist Ade Adepitan and swimmer Marc Woods along with familiar faces and voices such as Clare Balding, Steve Cram, Paul Dickenson, Eddie Butler, Nick Mullins and Bob Ballard.

BBC television coverage will be more extensive than ever before with six hours a day of live coverage, starting at 1000 BST, being streamed on the red button and broadband each weekday with a one hour highlights show on BBC Two at 1900 each night. At weekends, the coverage starts on the red button/broadband and then switches to BBC One or Two for the afternoon. All BBC One and Two output will also be simultaneously shown on the BBC High Definition channel. Both the Opening and Closing ceremonies will be broadcast live including the London handover moment on the final day.

BBC Radio 5 Live will also have a dedicated team in Beijing to provide news and commentary throughout the Games with the BBC's award winning Disability Sport (currently renamed Paralympics) website providing news, features and blogs alongside live streaming. There are also teams from News and Nations & Regions providing specific content for all the BBC local tv and radio stations.

We're looking forward to a great Games; another terrific sporting spectacle. As always, we'll endeavour to convey the drama and excitement of world class sporting competition to audiences back home. We make no apologies for it but the BBC is ready to convey 'Paralympic fever' to the UK.