Hitting the right tone - and missing it

TV VIEW:IT WAS a week of extraordinary life stories, but it's unlikely anyone at the Paralympics came to London with one quite as, well, captivating as that of now three-time Paralympian and multimedal winner Sebastian Rodriguez.

“He’s the one to watch here, isn’t he,” said Jonathan Edwards ahead of Thursday’s 50m freestyle S5 final. “Yes,” said Giles Long, “and he’s an interesting case. He came in to the Paralympics after being convicted for terrorist bombings back in 1984 and has his disability from going on hunger strike while he was in prison [he lost both his legs].” Edwards really didn’t know what to say. Would you?

The previous evening, Channel 4 News featured another competitor with a bewildering biography, the Afghan weightlifter Fahim Rahimi who is his country’s only representative at the Games. He lost his right leg when he stepped on a landmine when he was 12, almost 20 years ago, making him one of two million Afghans suffering from disabilities as a result of the wars in their country.

He’s a taxi driver in Kabul, uses a basic plastic leg provided by the Red Cross, and he trains in his gym using clutches from old trucks. He’s proud to be in London, as he was in Beijing, but says he worries about “losing $20 a day in cab fares”. He wished he had some company, too. “I’m completely alone, especially when I go to breakfast,” he said.

Channel 4 has been receiving plenty of flak for being a little too “po-faced” the past week, for focusing too much during their coverage on the “courage” of the competitors rather than solely on their performances, but it would be most peculiar if stories such as Rahimi’s were overlooked, or if they failed to give some context to the life journeys these Paralympians have made. In that sense, they can’t really win, they’ll be criticised whatever their approach.

The channel did, though, have a less than smooth start to it all, widely lambasted for cutting away to ads during the opening ceremony. Jon Snow, too, got a bit of a hammering for his opening ceremony commentary, which was pretty much a detailing of how many of the parading countries were at war – or very close to it – rather than actually talking about the athletes. You couldn’t but smile in the end: you can take the fella out of news . . .

With the exception of some of the “old hands”, like Snow, Clare Balding and Krishnan Guru-Murthy, most of the presenters are new, or newish, to television, many of them former Paralympian, so there was an inevitable nervousness in the opening days. Endless chat, not enough action, but they’re beginning to get the balance right.

Georgie Bingham is one of the experienced crew, but was on the receiving end too for her piece with wheelchair athlete Arthur Williams, who was paralysed from the waist down after a car accident.

Williams was demonstrating how to get in to an incredibly narrow racing wheelchair, the task seeming to be nigh on impossible, Bingham apologising in advance for asking a “stupid question”: “Does it hurt?” No, he said, because he is unable to feel his legs.

She looked embarrassed, but unlike those doing the criticising, Williams knew she meant no harm so evidently took no offence.

Channel 4’s nightly Paralympics show, The Last Leg with Adam Mills? Well, he’s a comedian born without a right foot, so he knows something of disability, but still, there’s a Frankie Boyle-ish quality to it all. “Is it okay to ask how a guy with no arms how he wipes his arse,” asked Mills, the audience giggling wildly. “How does a blind man know he’s been shown a red card.” More chuckling. Hmm. It’s an odd conclusion to the day’s coverage.

On Friday and Saturday, of course, we were dripping in gold, swimmers Bethany Firth and Darragh McDonald and runners Jason Smyth and Michael McKillop Katie Tayloring their opposition. Britain’s Stef Reid, meanwhile, won silver in the long jump. “A special shout out to my family and the guy who made my legs,” she told Channel 4. Truly extraordinary life stories.