Royal Mail says Paralympic gold medallists will get individual stamps after all

They will be sold individually or on a sheet of two, with additional information on the winning athlete or athletes included.

It will be the first time that a set of stamps has been issued to celebrate Paralympic gold medallists from the host country and Royal Mail admitted it would be a “huge logistical challenge.”

On August 29, it will also become the first postal administration whose country is hosting the Games to issue a set of stamps to celebrate the start of the Paralympic Games.

At the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games, Great Britain won 42 gold medals.

Andrew Hammond, managing director of Royal Mail Stamps, said: “Following the great success of TeamGB at the Olympics, the popularity of Royal Mail’s gold medal stamps and the way in which our gold post boxes have captured the public imagination, we have decided to commemorate ParalympicsGB’s achievements in the same way. We believe this is the right thing to do.

“Just as our Olympians outperformed expectations, we are confident that our Paralympians will also outperform.

“That would see us issuing many more individual stamps than the 29 printed over the London 2012 Olympics fortnight.

“This is a huge logistical challenge and we will get the gold medal stamps for sale as quickly as possible to a network of Post Office branches around the country and certainly within five working days of a win.

“We are excited about our Paralympics gold medal stamps programme, which represents the greatest logistical challenge in stamps production ever undertaken by any postal administration.”

The British Paralympic Association (BPA) welcomed the announcement.

Tim Hollingsworth, BPA chief executive, said: “We are delighted that the offer has been increased to enable individual stamps to celebrate our athletes' achievements and thank Royal Mail for reconsidering this proposal.

“We hope that the whole nation will continue their support of British athletes and cheer us on to many gold medals.”

In support of ParalympicsGB, Royal Mail has this year donated £200,000 to BPA, which will be shared equally among all gold medallists.

Its original plan, which drew criticism, was to honour the athletes with a series of six first-class stamps featuring every medallist, to be produced after the Games finish on September 9.

A post box in each gold medallist's home town will also be painted gold, as has been the case with members of Team GB.