PARALYMPIC WORLD CUP
Dates: 7-11 May Venue: Manchester
Coverage: Daily reports and photos on bbc.co.uk/sport. Coverage on BBC Two from 1600-1745 Sunday

By Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson

It was an emotional time for Tanni at last year's World Cup

When I decided to retire last year there was only really one place that I seriously considered finishing my racing career - and that was at the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester.

It seemed logical that my last race in a GB vest should be on home soil and at an event that was trying to take disability sport to another level.

This year's event begins on Wednesday and runs until Sunday with the four sports - basketball, cycling, athletics and swimming - taking place at various venues across the city.

When I started competing in sport, the world for disabled athletes was a very different place from where it is now.

There was little media coverage at my first Games in Seoul in 1988, apart from a slightly patronising highlights programme a few weeks after the event.

There wasn't much of a team send-off, and our welcome home was in the gym at Stoke Mandeville Stadium. At the time it all felt a bit random and an anti-climax but, in hindsight, to go to the place where the Games started was the right thing to do.

The Paralympic Games have grown at a speed that no-one could have guessed 20 years ago. And it is not just in terms of the size of event, but how the event is perceived and recognised around the world.

The London 2012 Organising Committee (Locog) have recently released figures showing that there is high public recognition of the Games itself, but there was a need to do something else.

It was recognised that the UK needed to develop a high-profile event to increase the media coverage, and get more disabled athletes faces into the nation's psyche.

It would give our established athletes the chance to perform against the best in the world on home soil, and it would help our developing athletes take the step to the next level.

"The Paralympic World Cup has a role to play in building the base for the future, both in terms of sporting excellence and developing our next generation of stars, but also in showing them off to the world"

And it has generally worked very well, within the constraints of trying to balance the needs of four very different sports, all of whom have different competition focuses.

The challenge, especially for athletics, will always be to attract the best in the world at this time of year. In wheelchair racing terms, May is still relatively early in the season to be competing on the track, which to be honest is not the fastest in the world.

Most of the wheelchair athletes are just coming out of a block of road racing and the transition time to track sprinting is short.

And this year is all about one thing - Beijing.

Most countries have selection policies that take into account the athletes' position on the world ranking lists, and there is no room for emotion.

In other years many athletes are willing to shift their competition programme around to fit in the events that give profile and support. This year you will see none of that.

The event organisers know the challenges that face them in this year's event and in the following year.

With our own Paralympic Games just four years away there is also the added pressure of building on the survey that Locog commissioned that tells us how popular disability sport is.

It is now not just about putting disability sport into our living rooms, it is about getting people to come out and watch the events live. Even for athletics, that is not an easy job to do.

Manchester set the standard for inclusivity with the Commonwealth Games, and has thrown down the gauntlet for others, including London, to follow.

The Paralympic World Cup has a role to play in building that base for the future both in terms of sporting excellence and developing our next generation of stars, but also in showing them off to the world.

Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson will be part of the BBC Sport team at the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester. There will be coverage of the event on BBC Two on Sunday 11 May from 1600-1745 BST.