Paralympic Games: The mammoth task to ‘conquer America’ at the hands of the IPC

A huge four years are ahead for the International Paralympic Committee as they set out to capture the minds and hearts of the American public to make the LA Games just as special as Paris.

The International Paralympic Committee believes it has a huge task on their hands to capture the hearts of Americans in four years time.

Los Angeles will host the 2028 Paralympics after an event in Paris which has been deemed as the “most spectacular” in history.

“We want to conquer America, it is as simple as that,” the IPC’s chief brand and communications officer Craig Spence said.

“The Paralympic Games does not have the awareness or the profile in the US as it does in Europe.

“My advice is to spend the next two years educating the audience on what to expect, and then move into the engagement stage.

“It is important that you educate the audience on why we are so special.”

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Crowds have returned to the Paralympics in droves in the French capital, with over 2.4 million tickets, after they were banned at Tokyo 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.

While Spence and his fellow officials have been pleased with the level of performance, not as many records have been broken.

But it’s no shock either he said with more than 90 world records broken so far.

“I think in London (2012), we had over 200, and in Tokyo (2020), we had (over 180). So we are half of what we had in Tokyo. We are almost plateauing, which we said we would always do,” he said.

“I think these are the greatest Games we have seen for sport performance, but having a real drop in world records shows that we are almost hitting where other sports are in their life cycle.

“So far 80 NPCs have won medals and the record is 86, so we might beat that record. Fifty-five delegations have won a gold medal. The record is 56.”

Originally published as Paralympic Games: The mammoth task to ‘conquer America’ at the hands of the IPC