Gold Coast promise more Paralympic events if they are awarded 2018 Commonwealth Games
By Tom Degun in the Gold Coast
June 23 - Mark Peters, chief executive of Gold Coast 2018, has claimed that the Australian city is looking to stage a larger component of Paralympic competition than usual at the Commonwealth Games if their bid is successful.
Disability sport made its Commonwealth Games debut at the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games and has featured at every event since as a fully integrated part of the competition with the likes of Australian wheelchair racer Kurt Fearnley and South African leg amputee swimmer Natalie du Toit having starred at previous Games.
There have been criticisms at the lack of Paralympic competition at the event with only a small number of events on the programme but Peters is hopeful a Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast could change this.
"All of our building standards in Queensland require access for people with a disability," Peters told insideworldparasport.
"Our Village has been designed very much around that.
"We look back at the Sydney 2000 Paralympics Games and we think in Australia, and hopefully around the world, the way that the Paralympics Games were promoted and with the great athletes we had there, it changed the whole mind-set of people.
"They went from thinking, these are disabled athletes to these are real top athletes that simply happen to have a disability.
"Those Games were a whole revolution in Australia and since then we have seen the Australian Paralympic Committee (APC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) do terrific things to further promote Paralympic sport."
Talks have started about increasing the visibility of disability sport in the Commonwealth Games if the Gold Coast is chosen, Peters ( pictured) has admitted."We have actually talked to the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) and explained that we have the capacity here in the Gold Coast to run a much larger component of Parasport competition than is usually seen at the Commonwealth Games," he said.
"Therefore we would hope, if our bid is successful, that the CGF and the IPC could sit down and discuss how we could stage a very large Parasport competition in 2018.
"So facility wise, transport wise, that is now our culture.
"It is about recognising everybody and we think our Games could provide a tremendous boost for Parasport."
The CGF Evaluation Commission, chaired by Scotland's Louise Martin, today completed their four-day inspection of the Australian city and they are now set to head to Sri Lanka for an a four-day inspection of the Gold Coast's only rival for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Hambantota.
The Commission will then produce a final Evaluation report for voting delegates to be published this September which will play a key role in deciding where the 2018 Commonwealth Games are staged when the vote for them takes place at the GCF General Assembly on November 11 in St Kitts and Nevis.
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