On the Eve of the Paralympics opening ceremony, Britain’s team have been given a target of 103 medals at the games. The target has been set by the government’s funding body UK Sport and was based on data from all 18 of the Paralympic sports that they have funded. The collective range that they compiled was for Team GB to achieve between 95-145 medals.
This may not sound that unreasonable as GB have finished second on the medal tally in the past three games. They expect a return of 40-50 medals in Swimming, 15-23 in Para-cycling and 8-10 in Para-Equestrian dressage.
Britain’s Paralympic campaign has been backed by GBP49million, so they should be high achievers when the games begin.
Interesting in the build up very few British papers have highlighted any Australian athletes as ones to look out for. In fact in Wheelchair basketball where the Australian Rollers are the current Gold medalists, they have stated that the USA and Canada are favourites with Team GB also expected to medal. No doubt the Rollers will use that as motivation and can rise to the occasion and go back to back!
