Image Credit Inpho.ieThe International Paralympic Committee has announced that thee will be six new Grand Prix events covering the full range of Paralympic athletics to be run on a trial basis during 2013.
Given the starring roles which Jason Smyth and Michael McKillop played at London 2012, this is a significant development for Irish sport.
The six events will take place in Dubai, Beijing, Sao Paolo, Grossetto in Italy, Arizona and Berlin over the course of the spring and summer.
“With 1.1 million tickets sold to Athletics at the London Paralympic Games, we need to see if we can sustain that interest,” said Ed Warner, Chair of the IPC Athletics Technical Committee.  “The way to do that is to put on attractive events to show off the talent there is at this level.”
The growth of interest in Paralympic sport also presents an opportunity for Ireland to cater for European or World events that would be impossible at Olympic level but which could draw major international crowds.
There is currently a search on for a host city to stage the 2014 European Paralympic Swimming Championships.  Bethany Firth and Darren McDonald were among the medals in London while Ellie Simmonds was one of the international faces of the games.
The 2011 Championships were held in Berlin and drew 550 competitors from 40 countries.
The National Aquatic Centre, part of the Sports Campus at Abbottstown is an international standard facility that could provide the access and hotel accomodation required of a major championship and while the lack of a 50M warm up pool would preclude bidding based on the criteria for 2014, it is close enough in terms of what it offers for future events to be seriously considered.
The country has hosted European and world events in Golf, Equestrian Sport, the Europa League Final, Cross Country and many more sports.  The FAI is bidding to be one of the 13 host cities for the dispersed Euro 2020 Football Championship Finals and the European Women’s Boxing Championships will be held here this year as well.
Paralympics Ireland showed its mettle in the commercial stakes by lifting the number of partners from one to 16 between Beijing and London and would surely rise to the challenge with support from others.
What is needed is to select tournaments that are within the capacity of the nation to host and then pull together the necessary cooperation across the state and private sector to make it happen.
Athletes, the local economy and Ireland’s national standing on a global sporting stage would all benefit from something that may require a lot of work but is possible.
[stextbox id=”info”]
This article is free to view until Thursday, January 31st.  Sign up today for a full or trial membership of Sport for Business and gain access to our full content, to a range of networking opportunities and member services, and to stand shoulder to shoulder with the many leaders in business and sport that are already part of our community.
These include PwC * KPMG * JGA Sports * Ulster Bank * Horse Racing Ireland * The GAA * Bank of Ireland * The Irish Sports Council * The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport * UCD Smurfit Business School * Platinum One and more than 20 national governing bodies in sport.
[/stextbox]
[stextbox id=”black”]Sign up for a free daily news digest and stay ahead with everything that is happening in the commercial world of Irish sport, delivered to your mail box before 8am Monday to Friday[/stextbox]
[/nonmember]