Mr Stanhope was responding to concerns raised by Sean Fitzgerald, who has been confined to a wheelchair since breaking his neck while riding a mountain bike in the Northern Territory.

Mr Fitzgerald's wife, also a keen mountain bike rider, is a volunteer at the championships.

Mr Fitzgerald said the organisers of the championships had ''just plain forgot about the disability access stuff''.

''I went out [on Wednesday], as much as a disability advocate as for myself, and the guys at the traffic control said nobody had talked to them about disability car parking spaces,'' he said.

''They had taken it on themselves to allocate half a dozen spaces. There are hundreds of spaces out there, and under ACT planning rules 10 per cent of parking should be disability access.''

For more, pick up a copy of today's Canberra Times