As the London Paralympics draw to a close, with record ticket sales, bumper crowds and the highest profile in the Games’ history after a successful Olympics, talk has again turned to merging the two events. But any joint competition is unlikely to happen soon, as the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) governing bodies recently signed an agreement to keep the current system until 2020.
“That (holding an integrated Olympics and Paralympics) is something that we’ve not discussed either internally or with the IOC at this stage,” IPC president Philip Craven told AFP in a recent interview.
The Briton, in office until 2017 and then hoping for a fourth and final term, did not rule out integration but predicted that it would be “way into the future” and “definitely not before 2028”.
Certainly, talent is no longer a factor when it comes to elite athletes with a disability competing against their non-disabled counterparts at the Olympics and other events. Gold medal-winning cyclist Victoria Pendleton said team-mate Sarah Storey proved the point, after she just missed out on the Olympics and set a Paralympic time in London that would have won her a non-disabled World Championship silver.