Home | Your Council | News and communications | September news | September news

September news

Paralympic handover celebrations come to Portsmouth’s Big Screen

The Big Screen in use during the Olympic Games opening ceremony

Pupils from Portsmouth schools will be helping to celebrate the handover of the Paralympics from Beijing to London with a sports carousel in Guildhall Square.

Portsmouth is one of only eight cities across the country chosen by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games to host a Big Screen.

The celebrations on Wednesday (17 September) will be centred on the Big Screen in Guildhall Square, which will be showing all the action live from Beijing as the Paralympics reaches its grand finale.

Children and young people from across the city will be part of the action, joining in a variety of Paralympic and Olympic sports, including boccia, polybat, mini tennis, new age kurling, and adapted basketball and athletics. All the sports can be adapted to suit pupils of all ages and abilities, and all the schoolchildren taking part will have the chance to try each of the activities on the sports carousel.

After working up an appetite taking part in the sports carousel, the pupils will be able to take part in the Big School Lunch and tuck in to their packed lunches while watching live coverage of the Paralympic closing ceremony from Beijing. The Paralympic celebration coincides with the launch of the London 2012 Education Programme, which aims to encourage schools and colleges to get involved in London 2012 – and young people in Portsmouth are already off to a flying start.

Councillor Eleanor Scott, Cabinet Member for Education, Children and Young People said: “This is a great opportunity for pupils from Portsmouth to really feel part of the Paralympic handover celebrations in Beijing and to take part in some of the sports.

“Now the build up to London 2012 can really begin and in Portsmouth we will be making the most of the chance to get more children and young people involved in sport.”

To find out more about the handover celebrations, visit the London 2012 website at www.london2012.com.

The sports carousel will get underway at 11am, with pupils joining young people across the country to sit down for the Big School Lunch at 1pm to watch the closing ceremony. Live coverage from Beijing finishes at 4pm.

Please note: the sports carousel is subject to weather conditions and, in the event of bad weather, will not go ahead in Guildhall Square.

Date : 15 September 2008