'Cleanliness of Olympic and Paralympic Games' needs to be kept, says Tanni Grey-Thompson

Opening ceremony where were you for the opening ceremony and um what did you make of it well actually I was watching on TV but um have to say first hour was a little slow uh but it got better and better and it really built and I think cuz we're so used to a Stadium opening ceremony uh I think it was very French it was very Parisian they showed you know the absolute best of the city at times it felt a bit like a tourist advert but I think what picked me up was that the athletes who made on the boats they look like were having a really good time uh which was amazing considering how wet it was but um I think once we got on to the more formal bits and I mean the lighting of the torch was stunning and I went to look at it last night and you know just thousands of people around um you know it been in sort of the Heart of the City these games feel like they're much closer to real people rather than the people who can just afford to buy the tickets and the reality is some of the tickets are very expensive yeah I think they obviously Torch lighting did take quite a big risk and I mean some of it was was utterly Bonkers you know Assassin's Creed meets Mari Antoinette but but I love that that silver horse and you know I didn't think I was a Seline Dion fan but I am this morning I mean I think she absolutely nailed it I haven't met anyone who didn't think she was absolutely stunning and sort of you know underneath the Eiffel Tower I mean I think for for me as a par Olympian what was incredible was that they used a mixture of Olympians and Par Olympians to to carry the the torch no other city has done that they've used it into the runup but not actually on the night of the opening ceremony and I think that's a really big nod to the Paro Olympics which come in a a few weeks time uh and and around the city there's lots of imagery of of par Olympians as well which is is quite exciting to see it's not just the Olympics and then we have the Paralympics it feels like they've given uh some extra thought to how they can build up the Paro Olympic Games well I Gender parity wanted to ask you about that I mean um the French are are boasting rightly about the fact that apparently there are equal numbers of male and female athletes uh in the first two weeks in the in the Olympics um there was a time when the Paralympics were sort of afterthought uh that's no longer true but how far along are we to the road to parity for the Paralympics um I think each games takes another step forward I mean certainly London raised the bar and I think part of that is that you know uh athletes were were Absolut at the heart of all the decision- making and when you've got chair like sabco who' been to so many games and understood the Paro Olympic movement you know things like the village uh you know was you know there was complete parity there so um I think it's a shame for Tokyo you know with lockdown that we didn't get to see the best of what they could do but now any City that bids for the Olympics they have to have the Paralympics um so so each cycle it feels like we're moving on and and this time there's going to be more coverage of the Paralympics around the world than ever before uh the USA are you know doing a lot more coverage I think I've always said that you know when USA starts taking the par Olympics seriously then that just gets it into a whole you know number of different markets uh because the reality is we we have to have people watching what what imp practice does it mean Tanny for the for the athletes to move towards a par Olympic par I mean is it just a sort of an issue of the image or is there are there practical outputs for the athletes I mean there's very practical outputs um you know part of it is recognition you know paralympians are really athletes they train incredibly hard you know anyone who's Olympian and Par Olympian Elite Sports person they train incredibly hard recognition of success is nice but the reality is also is about sponsorship uh it's it's about that Financial backet you know um in in athletics over the years you know you'd made it as a mainstream Runner if you got a million dollar a year shoe contract par Olympians are no any of that so so there is a financial part of it as well it's not all of it but um I think it's kind of interesting as well the way that par Olympians can have an impact the Paralympics is first and foremost an elite sporting event but it can nudge kind of that social attitude towards discipline it can't fix it all absolutely not but it can start a different conversation Cleanness do you um think that uh in in a sense that uh sorry what I I wanted to come back to a separate point but I'll come back to that in a second can I ask you about um the the issue of the cleanness if I can use that expression of these uh Olympics and Par Olympics um are we making progress in stamping out cheating um that's a really interesting question me there's a lot of controversy coming into these games uh about the Chinese swimmers uh America uh Olympic and Par Olympic uh Federation have have taken a stance there's lots of politics behind the scenes uh you know there are similar issues in in par Olympic sport there will always be individuals who will try and push the boundaries um but I think it's it's really important that you know as you say that cleanliness of the games for for both games uh is is and you know the investment into things uh in in paralympic sport intentional misrepresentation uh in an Olympic sport it's more around likely to be around drugs that they have to keep investing that to keep people watching uh because I think that's a a really important part of it so I think every games there's been those debates um it'll be interesting to see how it plays out with you know the ioc sort of making some some sort of very big statements uh about the USA and where they are at the moment I don't think the LA games are in any doubt whatsoever there's no way that they'd take uh the LA games away from the USA but but it's a Perpetual discussion that I think we we we need to keep addressing uh you've seen a lot of these Success games and um you know you're a public figure you're in the house Lords and all of that so you uh probably a per person best qualified to answer this question we had a lionesses and everybody was cheerful about that mild disappointment uh about the Euros um I'm going to ask you in a moment what success here is going to look like but if we are successful how much do these things affect the wider public mood um you know everybody's a bit gloomy here do you think success at in Paris will can help lift Britain yeah it absolutely does um and you know at games time you know over the years we talk about the Wimbledon effect where you know a couple of weeks after Wimbledon seems like everybody wants to play um and and we do get that spike in participation it's it's how you you put the funding and the support behind it to make sure that we we keep developing we we need people to be physically active We're a nation that we say we love sport we actually quite like watching sport you know 80% of women aren't fit enough to be healthy so you know we we we have to do more and and there is part of it you know with the games they do provide these inspirational moments but you know to to then go away from watching in the games to actually being an athlete takes quite a lot of hard work determination resilience you know and a bit of luck so um yeah there's definitely a spike it will lift the mood in the nation and and you say about success I think there's two different sorts of success there's the medal success um you know GB team gb's off to a brilliant start wasn't particularly expecting to win uh a medal in the diving um you know the the big Sports Athletics woming you know have have to deliver so there's the number of medals gold medals you know Silvers and bronz is only count when there's a type of gold so the gold medals matter but I think the public relate to you know inspirational moments a sport they may haven't really watched before someone who's was considered an underdog who comes out and does this amazing performance so I think to the public success is two in two parts and you know there will be moments that you know someone years from now will say that that was the thing that got me on the path to being Olympian or paral Olympian Watching okay I I like your distinction between doing and watching my sofa is very much in training at the moment um but just very quickly um one sport that uh that we should maybe watch that we wouldn't otherwise and one person to watch oh um skateboarding uh is is amazing uh I think that's going to have moved on so much in the last four years um oh I always ha I'm going to say Tom Dean uh swimmer mostly his mom had an absolute nightmare get into Paris there were just so many people trying to get her on a train yesterday and Eurostar stepped in uh and so I hope for for his mom that he has the most amazing games because it's been so hard for him to get here