Long overdue Paralympics telecast stirs emotions
November 8th, 2008Richard Sandomir, writing in the New York Times, says NBC’s upcoming documentary about the Paralympics made him cry. An excerpt:
It is a 90-minute, continuous “Oh my” journey with amputee sprinters and swimmers, wheelchair basketball players and racers, a paralyzed shot-putter, a sailor with Lou Gehrig’s disease, and Marin Morrison, a swimmer devastated by a brain tumor.
… We have been conditioned since ABC’s Olympic productions in the 1960s to hearing the stories of athletes’ struggles, those inspiring personal profiles. Not to denigrate the best of them, but Paralympians really have life stories to stir the soul.
NBC producer David Michaels says a small budget and logistical problems prevented NBC from running the documentary and the 28-hour schedule of events any earlier. The Paralympics ended almost two months ago.

