Channel 4 begins nine days of compelling winter para-sport action with live coverage of the Opening Ceremony for the 11th Paralympic Winter Games from Sochi’s Fisht Stadium on Friday, March 7.
After a largely successful Olympic Games, Russia welcomes the world once again as a global audience of millions tunes in to witness a Paralympic Opening Ceremony which promises to include pyrotechnics, ballet performances, acrobatics and wheelchair contemporary dance inspired by Russian traditions.
Sochi 2014 is set to be the biggest Winter Paralympics in the event’s history, with around 575 athletes from 45 countries participating across nine days from March 7 to 16.
They will compete for 72 sets of medals in five sports – alpine skiing, biathlon, cross country skiing, ice sledge hockey and wheelchair curling – with the new discipline of para-snowboard included for the first time ever in the Paralympic movement.
As was the case before the Winter Olympic Games, the build-up to Winter Paralympics has been marred by political tensions, although this time as a result of the current crisis in neighbouring Ukraine which has dominated the headlines.
Despite security concerns and the unrest during the last week, hundreds of athletes will be heading to Russia for the 11th staging of the Winter Paralympics, albeit under a uncertain cloud in which the toxic factions of politics and sport have unfortunately collided once again.
It follows the escalation of tensions between the Paralympic host nation and Ukraine with Russian forces in de facto control of the Crimea region in the former Soviet state.
Leading British officials have decided against attending the Paralympic Games, though Great Britain is not alone in not attending with government officials from the United States and Canada confirming they would also not be in Sochi.
Despite pre-Olympic concerns about security, the Games passed without a major incident and all the athletes and officials concerned will be hoping the Paralympics will follow suit.
Sir Philip Craven, president of the International Paralympic Committee, said prior to the Games: “We don’t want anybody to pull out and we have no indication at the moment they would do so.
“We in the Paralympic movement really try to keep sport and politics apart and that’s what we are achieving so far.”
Sochi 2014 will be Craven’s fourth and final Paralympic Winter Games as IPC President and the five-time Paralympian in wheelchair basketball will be in attendance at the Opening Ceremony, where he will deliver a speech to welcome athletes and spectators to the Games.
Both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for Russia’s first Paralympic Games take place at the 40,000-seater ‘Fisht’ Olympic Stadium, located on Sochi’s brand new Olympic Park on the coast of the Black Sea.
Purpose-built for the ceremonies, spectators and television viewers alike will be able to sample the magnificent view the stadium offers of both the mountain peaks in the north and the sea in the south.
The build-up to the Sochi Paralympics has included the now-traditional Torch Relay, which was lit at a special ceremony at Stoke Manderville, the birthplace of the Paralympic movement.
More than 1,000 torchbearers will have carried the Paralympic Torch through at least 50 Russian regions and the relay comes to its conclusion at the Opening Ceremony.
Amongst the colour and spectacle of the ceremony, several usual protocols will be on show including the parade of nations where hundreds of athletes will introduce themselves to the watching world and 40,000 spectators inside the stadium.
Millie Knight, a visually impaired skiier and at 15-years-old the youngest athlete that ParalympicsGB has ever taken to a Winter Games, will be the flag bearer for Great Britain at the ceremony.
Knight, who is seen as a potential star of the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, will take part in the slalom and giant slalom events in Sochi with her guide Rachael Ferrier.
While the ceremony is set to provide a spectacular start to nine days of competitive winter sport action, it is up in the mountains where the daredevil ambition of the Paralympic athletes really comes alive.
A team of 15 athletes will represent Great Britain at the Sochi Winter Paralympics and they will be competing in wheelchair curling events at Ice Cube Curling Centre and in alpine skiing events at Rosa Khutor.
London 2012’s incredible Summer Paralympics had a transformative effect on the majority of the viewing public and many hope Russia’s Games will wield a similar change in the perception of disability and para-sport.
WINTER PARALYMPICS 2014 on Channel 4 – When & Where to Watch
.
Channel 4 will broadcast live coverage of the Sochi 2014 Winter Paralympics Opening Ceremony on Friday, March 7.
Jon Snow anchors live coverage of the ceremony in Sochi from the Channel 4 studios in London as the network gets set to present the most comprehensive coverage of a Winter Paralympics ever seen on UK television.
The highly-respected veteran Channel 4 News anchor will be joined throughout in the studio by fellow Channel 4 presenters including Ade Adepitan, Jonathan Edwards, Arthur Williams and Kelly Cates, as well as raft of Winter Paralympic experts who will be on hand to assess the Sochi Games and ParalympicsGB’s medal prospects.
Channel 4’s live coverage begins half-an-hour before the ceremony is due to start at 4.00pm, where the build-up will include various features and reports about the athletes involved and the events that viewers will be enjoying over the course of the Games.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy will lead the commentary for the Opening Ceremony alongside former Paralympic ski racer Sean Rose as athletes from more than 40 countries assemble for the lighting of the cauldron.
Further reports and interviews with the British athletes involved will come from Iwan Thomas, Daraine Mulvihill and Rachel Latham.
Live coverage of the Opening Ceremony will be available to watch in high-definition on Channel 4 HD and online via Channel 4’s dedicated Paralympics website – channel4.com/paralympics.
Channel 4 are breaking new ground by providing live audio description online for the Opening and Closing Paralympic Ceremonies.
Audio describers Hannah Brownlie and Willie Elliott, who provided a similar commentary for the 2012 Paralympics Opening Ceremony on More4, will again bring the ceremonies alive for Channel 4’s visually impaired viewers via the C4 Paralympics website.
The C4 Paralympics website will also feature a live interactive text commentary with reports direct from Sochi as well as various video, photos and background content.
Also before the Games begin, Channel 4’s comedy series ‘The Last Leg’, which made its debut during the London 2012 Paralympics as a nightly highlights show, will take a sideways look at the Opening Ceremony in Sochi from 10.00pm.
Adam Hills, Josh Widdicombe and Alex Brooker will be joined by actor Richard Ayoade for a comic review of the significant moments from the ceremony and the build-up to the Winter Paralympic Games.
Then tune in on Saturday morning from 5.45am as Channel 4 begins more than 50 hours of coverage with day one from Sochi 2014.
Channel 4’s ground-breaking coverage of the Games is the greatest ever commitment to the Winter Paralympics from a UK broadcaster.
Channel 4 and More4 will show 50 hours of live action over the 10 days of competition, from the opening ceremony on Friday, March 7, through to the final day of competition on Sunday, March 16.
Two further high definition channels of live streaming will be available via the Channel 4 Paralympics website, showing an additional 100 hours.
Check out Sport On The Box’s complete viewing guide to the Winter Paralympics here or look out for our regular daily TV guides on the website.
.
| FRIDAY 7th MARCH |
Sochi 2014 Winter Paralympics: Opening Ceremony
Start Time: 16:14 GMT | Fisht Olympic Stadium, Sochi
.LIVE: 3.30pm-6.30pm Channel 4
The Last Leg: 10.00pm-10.45pm Channel 4
.
