As good as gold, but not for RTÉ

WHERE WERE you the night Ireland racked up three gold medals in three hours in an international sporting event, sliding ahead of Germany, France and Spain in the medals tables – watching The X Factor?

The question about the Paralympics isn’t how the Irish athletes managed to pull off such outstanding performances, but why the response from the rest of the country has been so muted. It’s not as though we’re a nation that’s a bit iffy about sport. And yet, on Super Saturday, as the Irish competitors bagged their first three golds, only about one-third of the comments on my Twitter timeline were about the Paralympics.

The other two-thirds were about the Electric Picnic and The X Factor.

That may be down to the fact people didn’t realise it was happening: despite being a member of the European Broadcasting Union, which had the rights to broadcast the games live, RTÉ has oddly decided to limit its Paralympics coverage to late-night highlights programmes, opting instead on Saturday to show Winning Streak on RTÉ 1 and Munster rugby on RTÉ 2.

Setanta is broadcasting the games live throughout the rest of this week, or you can watch them over on Channel 4, which has extended its coverage.