Paralympics paralysed by the red button

It would be nice to think that the BBC wouldn't need to justify itself to us with items like 'why the paralympics matter' on the BBC Sport website. But then when you have resigned one of the biggest sporting competitions in the world to the depths of the red button though perhaps you do have to begin to account for your actions.

It's difficult enough to tell that the games are even available to terrestrial viewers and doubtless some of the 400-plus staff that the BBC sent to Beijing for the Olympics didn't even know that there was a second sporting festival to follow. One can well imagine the scene as production confront Claire Balding in downtown Beijing: "Er Claire, a favour..." "Oh yes, what's that then?" "Well, do you think you could stay out here for another three weeks or so creating for the red button and the website? Tell you what, to show we're serious we'll even give call ourselves 'BBC Sport - the paralympic broadcaster', how does that sound?"

Credit is due to the BBC, they will certainly cover the paralympic games with the same sort of verve they did for the older brother. They'll just have to remind us that they're doing so. Would the games have been better served by continuous mainscreen coverage on Sky Sports 3? And if the Beeb are to stay out in Beijing, they shouldn't be embarrassed to do so. The games will be hugely impressive, massively entertaining and great fun - the BBC should make more of the opportunity to broadcast them or the BBC Sport stable will continue to weaken.