29/08/2012 Newsround

Hi everyone, I'm Ricky. This is Newsround. Welcome back to the

Olympic Park. Tonight, the 14th Paralympic Games will get started

in that beautiful stadium behind me. After the success of Team GB, all

our attention turns to our Paralympic hopefuls, who are aiming

to finish near the top of the leaderboard. In this programme we

will guide you through the next 11 days of sport. So let's begin.

It's another golden route to the line for British cycling! He is

absolutely flying! A wonderful moment for David Weir, his second

gold medal. I am so happy! I didn't believe

This is set to be the biggest Paralympics ever - a magnificent

end to an incredible summer of sport. Over two-and-a-half million

people have tickets to watch the events in the venues, with plenty

more watching at home. Lucky people! So what can they expect to

see? We have done with those five- coloured rings for now. East London

is geared up for the Paralympics. Over 4,000 athletes are here and

ready and with nearly twice the number of medals to play for, than

at the Olympics this is the world's biggest sporting event right now.

But why so many more medals? To make things fair, the 20 Paralympic

sports are divided into different competitions using a special

classification system. Depending on their level of

disability, athletes are given a number that determines which events

they they compete in and who they'll be up against. All that

means that over the next 12 days you will see nearly 30 finals of

the 100 metres, some competing with prosthetic limbs, some without.

Tandem, tri-cycle events on the track and road and swimers with

different conditions in the same race and a few sports you didn't

see at the Olympics like the brutal wheelchair rugby. Four years ago

Britain's Paralympians came away from Beijing with 102 medals and

they're hoping to go at least one better at London 2012.

We'll bring you the big stories from the Games here on Newsround,

of course, but the events themselves won't be shown on the

BBC because Channel 4 is where you'll see all the action. You'll

be fronting Channel 4's morning programme throughout the Games. You

must sob excited to be -- you must be so excited to be part of the

Olympics. I am so excited especially you showing all those

athletes taking part in Beijing it makes you realise it's so close,

starting tomorrow. They've changed the loga. Looking good. The people

are pouring into the stadium there already and they're ready for a

really big night at the opening ceremony.

Tell us about your story, you lost the use of your legs when you were

younger. What happened to you and is it important that the

Paralympics are taking place in London? It's so important. When I

was a teenager I used to be a competitive runner, I used to do

long distance and cross-country. Overnight I got meningitis which is

a disease, and I spent a year in hospital and while I was there I

lost both my legs below the knees, similar to Johnnie Peacock, a Great

Britain sprinter. And Oscar Pistorius, everyone is talking

about him. He hrot both his legs and is using special equipment to

make sure he can run. You have used the same kind of thing, tell us

about it and did what it feel like to wear those? It was so cool,

really it was. As somebody who used to be a runner I just really wanted

to get back in running again. put the blades on. It just felt

brilliant. Cow feel like you had the potential to run but they're

really hard work. It's not easy. I really respect Oscar Pistorius as a

result of trying them, definitely. Ellie Simmonds is again the poster

girl of the Paralympics. She's about 17 now, I think, she was 14

when she got her two golds in Beijing. All this pressure, we

always talk about pressure but really must be a lot on her

shoulders. It's a lot of pressure on Ellie because everybody knows

her now. When she went to Beijing people just just knew she was young

starting out, she has stiff competition from a young American

this year. She's going to really try and if Ellie is on top form I

think she can get more gold medals. Best of luck with your Channel 4

morning show, I will be watching. So Britain's Paralympians are

hoping for over 100 medals at these Games. But have you ever wondered

how these top athletes started out? One man who knows all about

competing at the top level is former GB wheelchair basketball

star - Ade Adepitan. Here's his story of how he got to the top.

kind of see myself as the kid who never gave up. Until the age of

three I lived in Nigeria and I contracted polio at six months. It

meant I was unable to walk without the use of calipers, which were

like iron rods that the doctors put on my leg and connected to my shoe

and on my first day of school I remember walking into the

playground and seeing a group of kids playing football. The guys

looked at me and they thought there is no way he could play sport and

in the final play time they allowed me to play football. They told me

to go in goal. I imagined to jump to one side and save what was going

to be a goal and I went from this crazy looking, weird kind of kid,

to this sporting hero in one afternoon, just because of that

save. That moment changed my life. I saw some guys from the Great

Britain wheelchair basketball team training and they were amazing.

They totally changed my ideas, my perceptions. They were doing

wheelies, spinning around, they had massive muscles and that moment is

when I looked at them and I thought, this is what I want to do. This is

where I want to be. When I finally got selected for the team it was

just one of the best moments of my life. Yes! My dream started when I

was probably about nine years old. I didn't make it into the Great

Britain wheelchair basketball team until I was 27.

It's special. It was the best moment. It doesn't matter whether

you have a disability, if you believe in yourself anything is

possible. Cheers, Ade. Over on the Newsround

website, you've been telling us about how excited you are about the

Paralympics. Loads of have you been Now, the Paralympic flame has been

making its way around London before heading to that stadium behind me

for this evening's opening ceremony. But they're miles behind schedule -

nearly two-and-a-half hours now - and organisers think they may need

to use a back-up flame to light the cauldron tonight. On its way around

London the flame's visited the penguins at London Zoo, to Lord's

cricket ground, and also made a visit to a Hindu temple. They

prepare as hard. They dedicate as much time and sacrifice as much as

any other athlete. So just a couple of hours until we get to see

another fantastic opening ceremony. We are being spoilt this year. The

Queen will be here along with Prince William and his wife, Kate.

It's going to be a fantastic spectacle. We hear the theme is