TV review: Inside Incredible Athletes | That Paralympic Show

Published on Friday 27 August 2010 16:19

Inside Incredible Athletes Channel 4, Sunday That Paralympic Show Channel 4, Saturday

AT FIRST glance, Inside Incredible Athletes sounded worryingly like those other Channel 4 programmes in which the inner workings of tigers, whales and the like are dissected. But thankfully, the aspiring Paralympians featured were only examined as far as X-rays and motion capture studies, to show how these sportspeople compete despite their bodily challenges.

It's 'Inside' in the profile sense, too, as the programme is an innovative way of introducing us to competitors who may be at the top of their sports but are not household names like their regular Olympian counterparts. With two years before the contest in London, it was a chance to start following those who may be in with a medal chance.

The question of why the Paralympics don't quite capture the popular imagination as much as the Olympics is a difficult one: is it a prejudiced assumption that it's a "lesser" achievement? It may just be that most viewers without a disability other than couch potato-ism have, at least at school, taken part in a very basic approximation of the regular Olympic events. You may have staggered panting to a record slowest time, but you know roughly what it feels like to run 100m or play basketball, so you can appreciate the skill which those feeble efforts are surpassed by top-class athletes.

But unless you've run with a prosthetic, or manoeuvred a wheelchair around a court, it's harder to understand just what the Paralympians are doing. A commentator's praise or a new record time is interesting, but doesn't quite get across the visceral empathy required to really root for the contender.

But this programme helped by breaking down just exactly what is involved in running with a metal prosthetic and balancing it with the different sensation of a foot, or swimming with cerebral palsy and compensating for a right side which won't obey the brain, or riding a horse using only pressure from the hips because the knees won't bend. It was quite fascinating, although the programme's disjointed, back-and-forth style was distracting.

It also introduced the sport of Paralympic football - new to me, at any rate - in which the players have varying degrees of visual impairment so all wear blindfolds. The referee however, unlike so many according to terraces wisdom, does not have a white stick. They manoeuvre the ball and each other by sound (the ball has a rattle, their team-mates call out), so presumably this is not a game to bring a vuvuzela to. But they are remarkably accurate and seemed to score rather more goals than England did in South Africa.

The footballers' striking showcase saw them dribbling the ball in a darkened hall of the British Museum, through displays of valuable artefacts.An anxious night for the curators but thankfully no statues were harmed in the making of the film.

Lee Pearson, a gregarious, character who has won nine Paralympic gold medals for dressage, is the most likely to reach household name status so it was no surprise to see him also chosen for That Paralympic Show, a new magazine series also following the athletes. Pearson got Alex 'husband-of-Jordan' Reid to put his steed through some complicated paces which seemed a big challenge for a dumb animal. The horse did well though.