Don't moan about the honours

The other day the 2013 New Year's Honours were announced and unsurprisingly the list was dominated by Olympians and to a lesser extent, Paralympians. However many people both members of the public and Paralympic athletes have been complaining about the honours that the "superhumans" have received.

The honours list most notably includes knighthoods for the sideburned Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins, as well as 4-time Olympic Champion Ben Ainslie. Paralympic cyclist Sarah Storey was appointed a dame while the performance directors of both British Cycling and Rowing were awarded the title of ‘sir’.

However many people were surprised to find out that David Weir was only awarded a CBE despite winning 4 gold medals earlier this year. Weir himself has tweeted that he is “extremely happy to have been given a CBE...” although has said that Paralympians must work harder than Olympians for recognition, which he later clarified on Twitter as a reference to the fact that Sarah Storey only received a Damehood now when “she should have been honoured a long time ago because of her achievements in Paralympic sport...”

I agree with Dave on this matter, Paralympic sport stars struggle to get the attention qnd recognition they deserve even in the run up to the 2012 Games, the biggest event in Para-sport history.

Some however cannot be as gracious Weir; Lee Pearson, the face of Paralympic equestrian told the Independent on Sunday that he was disappointed to receive a CBE rather than a knighthood. This really saddens me to see that he cannot be happy with what he has and must be criticising the fact that he hasn’t been awarded higher.

Let’s face it, 2012 wasn’t even Lee Pearson’s best year, although he won gold in Greenwich it was a poor performance from the rider who won three Paralympic titles at each of the three preceding Paralympics, and yet he still expects to be raised from an OBE to a knight.

Given this arrogance I would hesitate to award him a knighthood, even if he did manage to win three gold medals at the 2016 Olympics.

Overall I think that we do need to start treating both our Olympic and Paralympic athletes with equal respect although I think that anyone should moan about the prestigious titles they have been awarded, especially considering that there is only one MBE between all of the code breakers of Bletchley Park, without whom we wouldn’t have a nation to compete for.