Britain has finished second on the medal table at the last three Paralympic Games, but our position as a leading nation in Paralympic sport is hard-earned and at each Games the competition gets tougher.

We know that 2012 will be a huge challenge with many nations setting their sights on toppling us from second place. We know that we will need the best possible team in order to take on the world in London.

We recognise that in the world of disability sport the ParalympicsGB brand can act as a magnet to encourage people to try sports they may not have considered. As a result we have hosted Paralympic Potential days with our sports since 2007.

These days complement sports' own Talent ID programmes but differ in that they are multisport environments designed to give people the opportunity to try out several sports in one day.

They also give sports the chance to see more applicants than they may have been able to attract as single sports. They are designed to identify those individuals who have the raw talent and determination to be potential athletes and Paralympians.

And they have been very successful: several athletes are training with GB squads as a direct result of attending one.

A good example is Shaun McKeown, a 2012 hopeful in cycling, who was identified in 2009 and who represented Britain at the World Championships in Road Cycling shortly after.

Or Pam Grainger from the MOD Battle Back programme who attended in 2009 and has recently won a silver medal in shooting at a world cup. We have also worked with our colleagues at UK Sport and the EIS on the Paralympic Potential campaign, and we are already starting to see the results of our combined efforts in the numbers of new athletes on programmes.

So it is with great excitement that we will host our next Paralympic Potential day on Wednesday this week, this time at Pond's Forge in Sheffield. Over 50 disabled people have applied from right across the country, including several servicemen and women as a result of our strong relationship with the Ministry of Defence's Battle Back programme. We are also delighted that Cadbury's will be once again supporting the day.

Our talent days are particularly close to my heart. This is because they demonstrate an important part of what I hope will be a major legacy of the Paralympic Games - that is, increasing opportunities for more disabled people to take up sport to whatever level they aspire to.

Phil Lane is the chief executive of ParalympicsGB