The new deal started today when the latest Potential Day was held at Brunel University.

Cabury are already a tier two sponsor of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics and of Australia's Olympic team.

ParalympicsGB Performance Director Penny Briscoe told insideworldparasport that she was delighted with the partnership.

She said: "We wouldn’t be running the day this year without the Cadbury partnership.

"We owe a big thanks to Cadbury for agreeing to be part of the project."

Cadbury programme director for London 2012 Traci Alford said: "We are incredibly excited about our partnership with ParalympicsGB and about this event.

"There are people here with amazing personal stories.

"They have exceptional values and they are truly inspirational.

"We are very proud to associate ourselves with this group as they represent the same fantastic values as Cadbury do."

The Paralympic Potential Day is designed to identify athletes who could represent Britain in 2012 and beyond.

Elite coaches from a variety of National Governing Bodies are invited to watch and try out participants to see if they have what it takes to be an elite level performer.

The days have so far proven successful as between 40-50 per cent of attendees at previous days have been identified as having talent.

Several of these individuals are now already excelling in their sports at international level.

Para-cycling development coach Jane Barrett said: "Days such as this are massively important.

"There are a lot of people out there who want to get involved in Paralympic sport but don’t know the path to follow.

"Here today, they get to try out all different sports that they may never have experienced before so even if they don’t get on to the Olympic sports programme, they can still participate in the sport they never knew they might like until they came here."


 Also in attendance at the University were Paralympic gold medallists Tom Aggar and Sophie Christiansen.

Aggar, a former rugby union player who was a member of Saracens youth development squad who was left paralysed after suffering a serious spinal injury in an accident, won an adaptive rowing gold at the Parlaympics in Beijing last year after switching sports.

Aggar said: "Today is obviously really important for everyone here.

"I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who want to get involved in sport but just don’t know where to go.

"This provides them with that fantastic opportunity."

Dressage rider Christiansen said: "This [the Paralympic Potential Day] is paramount to getting young people involved in sport when the might otherwise never have had the opportunity to do so."

A total of 70 applicants attended the day at Brunel, 48 of who were male and 22 that were female. 

One of the Paralympic hopefuls Diana Man said: "Today has been fantastic for all of us to have a chance to compete in sports that we wouldn’t usually have had the opportunity to compete in.

"Even for those of us who won’t go on to compete at elite level, we been introduced to new sports and after today, I would be far more interested in joining my local sports club in sports that I wouldn’t have ever considered participating in before."

Briscoe said: "We are very committed to running these days right up to London 2012.

"Regardless of whether the athletes have the talent to make it at elite level or not, we want to ensure that it is a high quality day that every participant can get the most from."

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