Channel 4 lands BAFTA for London 2012 Paralympics coverage

Broadcaster continues to win awards for London 2012 13 May 2013

ⒸChannel 4

"I will never forget the great Paralympic moments we all shared in London 2012 and it’s incredibly rewarding that those fantastic achievements by our remarkable athletes are still being talked about now.”

UK broadcaster Channel 4 has won a highly prestigious British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award for Sport and Live Event for their coverage of the 2012 London Paralympic Games.

The channel beat off stiff competition from the BBC for its coverage of the Olympic Games and Wimbledon.

Channel 4's James Rutherford said: “A large team of people put in a terrific amount of hard work around this project and it’s fabulous they have been recognised on such a prestigious evening.

"I will never forget the great Paralympic moments we all shared in London 2012 and it’s incredibly rewarding that those fantastic achievements by our remarkable athletes are still being talked about now.”

Since broadcasting over 400 hours from the Games last summer Channel 4 has won a whole raft of awards.

Less than two weeks ago the Channel won two BT Sports Industry Awards for ‘Best TV Sport Commercial’ for their ‘Meet the Superhumans’ campaign and ‘Best Use of PR in a Sport Campaign.

In April Channel 4 won a Judges Award at the Royal Television Society Programme Awards for its wall-to-wall coverage of the Games that set new audience records for the broadcaster. Also last month the Channel 4 Paralympics website picked up a BAFTA Television Craft Award for Digital Creativity.

One of Channel 4’s presenters at the Games, Clare Balding, also picked up a special BAFTA award in recognition of her achievements in television.

Andrew Newman, chairman of BAFTA’s Television Committee, said: "Clare's body of work over the last 13 years speaks for itself, but it was through her expert coverage of the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games that Clare became a national treasure."

Clare Balding added: “I am in complete shock, I can’t believe I’ve been given such an extraordinary honour and I am totally delighted. I may not stop smiling until the end of the night."

Channel 4 has secured the broadcasting rights to show the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games in Russia and the Rio 2016 Paralympics in Brazil.