Press conference: Second BOCOG/IPC joint press conference

London Reporter

For the first time in 2007, the UN resolution of the Olympic truth, also the summer Paralympic states, sadly, the truth was violated during the early Olympics. But from the possession of national teams at the Opening Ceremony, it was obvious that several included war veterans. Does the IPC or BOCOG plan to unite the friendship and support the Olympic truth that various veterans competing here in Beijing?

Steffi Klein

Can you specify the question? What do you mean with reunification?

London Reporter

There are war veterans here competing in these Paralympic Games. In support of the Olympic truth, can you get together some of these war veterans?

Steffi Klein

To just meet or?

London Reporter

Yes, yes, meet. In support of the Olympic truth.

Steffi Klein

We will definitely discuss that with the IPC. There is nothing planned so far because they are all concentrating on the competition. But I will definitely raise that with the Paralympic committee. We will see what we can do. Thank you.

Paralympics GB

This is a question for Chris Cohen. Chris, can you confirm which country made the third of those protests? Can you let us know what during Olympic decision was relating to each of those protests? In other words, which one it was that caused the race to be re-run. And also, could you let us know, how soon after the race the officials look at the footage of that race?

Chris Cohen

Yes. The third protest, I think I mentioned the first one was Australian, the second one was USA, the third was placed by Switzerland about being impaired by the officials. The decisions of the jury as I said, taken in chronological order. The decision was made after the first protest, that the race should be re-run with the athletes responsible disqualified. The decision then was fairly easy that neither protesters will any longer valid because effectively, the race has to stop at the point where the jury has decided that the race has to be re-run. So there is no need to make any decisions on the process as to happen after that stage. Both of the protestors will return to their countries. Obviously, their protest fee was returned also. And the explanation given was why the jury would not look at these protests. In terms of the footage, there are certainly two members of jury who were watching the race, from the advantaged point, fairly high open of the stadium. And immediately the crash happened. I telephoned the manager, video tape room who is responsible for producing for video tape for protests, and ask him to make sure that he had recordings of that race from whatever views were available, so that if they were to protest, the jury would have access to it immediately. At the end of the race, we obviously watch the rest of the race, went down to the video room, started to watch the footage that was available that we will be using if there is a protest. I sat there with my watch, open to count the minute down to the 30 minutes after the result was announced. Obviously, in the hope that nobody would protest but clearly making sure that the protest was within the given time. So that was the process that was undergone at that time.

BBC

Can we just make absolutely clear the main process was from the Australian team, 163 paragraph to which was the opposition, can you just be absolutely clear on that? Because clearly that is the main process of the disqualification.

Chris Cohen

Yeah, that is the case. Australian made protest on which the first decision was made, and for those of you who don't know how the athletics is running at the Olympic Games, we follow the item of rule book, which is the rule book of athletics. And only in cases where we need to have a different rule, for instance, if we have athletes with visual impairment, who need a guide, we clearly have additional rules, for that we have our second rule book. The athletes IPC rule book. Which shows only the differences between the IWF rules and the rules we need to use additionally or separately for IPC competition. In this case, for IWF covers exactly the incident which has happened.

BBC

So we often know we do have big crash during racing. Not that often but it does happen. So what was the difference really from that particularly bad crash to any other crashes that may happen previously?

Chris Cohen

I think the decision of the jury was very largely the impact on such a large number of athletes with so few athletes that left in the race. That only over half athletes in the race were clearly disadvantaged, including athletes actually managed to carry on in the chairs. I think the impact of the result of the race was so huge that they felt that the race need to be re-run. But without the athletes who created the situation.

Yomiuri Shimbun

Two areas of follow-ups on these re-race. Could you tell us in regards to the condition of Japanese athletes being hospitalized? Whether they've taken that into calculation when you decide when to do the re-race. Was there any case in the past that you decide a re-race but meanwhile, the medal ceremony was conducted? Regarded this Paralympic lifter, because we are out of in touch of the information system, could you kindly tell us the substance whether it was out of competition test and that the doping offices was established after hearing on it?

Chris Cohen

Your first question, whether the injury of the athletes was taken into account, at this stage, when we made decision of the re-ran of the race, we were not aware of how serious the athletes were injured. We were aware the Japanese athletes have gone to hospital. But that was all we knew. The important thing for the technical delegate is to ensure all the athletes won't be disadvantaged in terms of the fact that they will have to race another time during that session. Wheelchair athletes will use the chair race in the session more than once in a day. But he decided on Friday there was an open slot, first thing in the morning. And there will be no disadvantage of the athletes. He hopes sufficiently long after the incident that anybody who was injured would at least have some opportunity to recover, and obviously would be involved in other events later on in the Games, and hadn't put it on immediately today or tomorrow then that may not be the case. So that was part of his thinking. When has this happened before? I think last time I remember this was happening was in Barcelona. It is not unique, but thankfully, this is very unusually. We were very embarrassed that this happened. We hope this isn't happening certainly for another 16 years or longer than that. Mistakes do happen. And we try to put every process in place to stop them from happening but sometimes they do.

Peter Van de Vliet

With regards of the anti-doping rule violation, a little more details are included in the press release that has been issued this morning. This is an anti-doping rule violation against article. One is presence of prohibited substances, which belongs to the category of metabolism agents, which is prohibited in and out the competition. Testing that has been conducted yesterday. I confirm a hearing to place in accordance with an article 917 of the IPC anti-doping prior to making decision by the IPC governing board.

Around the Rings

For Peter, another doping question. I was wondering if during this Games there is an education or a program to check for boosting, illegally and temporarily raising blood pressure. Thanks.

Peter Van de Vliet

I confirm the provisions made on such testing plan or screening plan in put in place will be conducted in the education of this Games. Yes.

Kyodo News

I raised the same question for Mr. Sun yesterday. For the hockey field, when we approached them for interview, the BOCOG officials stopped us saying there is no mixed zone for this competition. Because the right holding broadcasters paid the fee for the interviews so that the written journalists don't have any rights to conduct interview there. So I want to raise the same question to IPC. Is it IPC's decision or not?

Wang Wei

On the 7th of September for the day 1 competition on football, there was a huge media interest on the event. There were a lot of journalists were there. For the football, the field of play was 40 by 20, a very small field. Therefore the mixed zone is a limited area. Considering the special medical conditions of blind athletes, in order to reduce the burden upon them and in order to take care of the interest of the right holding broadcasters, the media and competition teams together with the BOB and ISPF, a decision was made. So when the first match was over on the 7th of September, with multiple rounds of coordination the written journalists were allowed into the mixed zones. So the operations inside the mixed zones were proceeding smoothly and many writers and journalists express their satisfaction. From day 2, the mixed zone on the football has become completely open to the writers and journalist.

Foreign reporter

Good afternoon, Peter, one question for you. How many samples of doping tests were taken by these 2 days of competition, during the competition starts? Thank you.

Peter Van de Vliet

From the start of the competition, I don't have the latest number as of today. I think at this very moment in competition, it is roughly around 100 to 120 tests that have been conducted on the first two days. We conducted in total already of 250 athletes have been subjected to the testing plan since the start of the Games which is the opening of the Paralympic Village.

Steffi Klein

May I add? On our website www.paralympic.org and the Paralympic Games Beijing section on the left hand side, there is actually fact sheets and those tests will be listed there everyday and will be updated there everyday. You will see how many tests taken during the day and also the number in total.

ABC

My question is that yesterday at the judo event for the 57 kg or 63 kg, and other two levels of competitions, much of the venues are empty on one part and very crowded on the other. The volunteers took seats everywhere they wanted. One side of the venue was full while at the other it was empty. What can we do about it because many spectators do love watching judo?

Wang Wei

Thank you very much for raising the question. For the Worker's Stadium, we will get more information as to what happened so far sitting is concerned. According to my own experience, when I was watching volleyball sitting and other competition, the media and VIPs stands have less people because most of those seats were reserved. But in other stands, it is quite full. So far as workers stadium is concerned, we will get information and come back to you later.

Zhang Qiuping at the press conference

Sun Weide

This is the end of press briefing. Thank you very much for being with us.