The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games September 6-17, 2008
The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games September 6-17, 2008
Date/Time: 10:00 a.m., Wednesday, September 17
Venue: Main Press Conference (MPC)
Sun Weide
Good morning everyone. Welcome to the last BOCOG/IPC joint press conference. Today, we are very happy to be joined by Mr. Philip Craven, president of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC); Steffi Klein, IPC Media and Communications Senior Manager; on the BOCOG side: Mr. Wang Wei, the executive vice president and secretary general of BOCOG: and Zhang Qiuping, director of the BOCOG Paralympic Games Department.
Wang Wei
Good morning everybody. First again, the overview in general.
On the 10th day of the Paralympic Games, there are 7 competition events staged in 7 venues. Up to date, a total of 465 gold medals, 463 silver medals and 479 bronze medals have been awarded. Of the 16 competition venues or venue cluster, 12 have finished stadium competitions.
Attendance rate
Of the 11 competitions sessions held for 7 competition events, the attendance rate for 9 sessions was over 90 %, and two sessions between 80-90%. Up to date, a total of 1,292,000 tickets have been sold to the public. The Olympic Common Domain area received 330,041 spectators. 22,855 people visited the Olympic Forest Park yesterday.
Update for today
On the 11th day of the Paralympic Games, we have 3 competition events and 8 gold medals were awarded. It is estimated that 23 dignitaries and 34 sports ministers will attend the Closing Ceremony.
Weather forecast
Beijing will be overcast and humid all throughout the day. Thank you.
Sun Weide
Now I would like to hand over the floor to President Craven.
Philip Craven
Thank you very much and thank you very much Wang Wei. Very pleased to be here on the last day of the Games. These games have been great games. I think everybody realizes that. I just have breakfast at the Swiss Hotel and the people have just been coming up and saying congratulations or giving me the thumbs up or all sorts positive. We had more media than ever before around 5500, more broadcast than ever before more than 1000 hours, IPC huge channels had 1.1 million visitors during Games time and will have more to come of course with it not yet finished. More athletes from 147 countries and regions, more spectators as Wang Wei has told you. The events that were sold out including the Opening and Closing ceremony and all swimming and athletic events were sold out. There has been an excelling organization. I will be talking more about this in my closing ceremony speech tonight. So I don't want to steal my own film on that. With the great hospitality, I hope you experienced that here in China, so it's not just Beijing but Qingdao and Hong Kong. It's been just so warm so welcoming with such great quality with all the smiles of the volunteers, far deeper that just their smiles or maybe their smiles are so deep.
But mainly young people talked about anything and everything, obviously not Chinese to me. When they speak English, it is not hard to figure out they have just as great interest if not greater interest to make the world a better place. I would like to thank BOCOG, the Chinese government. To of course municipalities, of the three centers of Paralympic sports, which were Hong Kong, Qingdao and Beijing.
There has been positive feedback, as I have said, from everyone I have spoken to. And also, the Paralympic Games, we know there are catalysts for changes, but when you are here, so much in the media in China before both Games, you even do have a doubt, thanks to the western media, as to whether we can achieve what we achieved here. But it has been achieved. It is amazing, the change around in thinking, or the progression in thinking, it is not a change around, it is a progression on the way the perception of disability starting to be got out of the Chinese language. And hopefully, they will get out of all the other languages in the world, following China's example.
As for accessibility, I should mention the Great Wall. But I want to focus on the Forbidden City. I just keep getting casual reports saying Forbidden City crowded and can hardly move. Persons in wheelchairs, Chinese people, and athletes all want to get into what is forbidden. You can't get in there whether you are walking or not, until recently. Now, everyone can go there. Isn't that marvelous? It is forbidden.
Let me talk about the wall for a moment. Our CEO Xavier Gonzalez said, you know, China has made the great wall accessible. And you know, he said it was built so it can be totally inaccessible. If you think about that. I haven't thought about that before. It was a structure that was made to be totally inaccessible, but it has been made accessible for all prior to these games.
Doping, we've had 3 cases, each all of them out of competition. To date, we haven't had one in competition doping case. Moving on to the Paralympic movement, that is the world movement, not just in China. The Games are getting bigger. We hope we are getting more competent. That is the IPC and Olympic family partnership with the Games Organizing Committee. I think the partnership we have developed with BOCOG for six and a half years came to a success here in Beijing.
The athlete council elections, over 88% of athletes voted. That is an incredible turning. They show the interest the athletes have in their future.
Personal highlights for me. The Opening Ceremony, an incredible theater performance, by the deaf, blind and physically impaired dancing troupe, music troupes at Poly Theater over a weeks ago. World class. Two hours of entertainment. You just don't know that all the dancers are all deaf or blind, or the muscians are blind. Just unbelievable. Even more emotional than the Opening Ceremony for me. That was pretty emotional. And I'm waiting for tonight's closing ceremony.
As for the wheel chair basketball last night, I was able to be a fan for the first time. I was with my friends, my former colleagues in the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation. And watch Great Britain winning the bronze against the USA. I can tell you I'm pretty proud, sorry of the USA but really proud for Great Britain.
When the Chinese athletes came by in the T11 5000 meters, this is earlier in the games, 90,000 in the stadium, and as he pasted, the roof went off the stadium. I mean, what more do you want?
Wheel chair Tennis, the women's single final, I was given the medals there and I have appointments after that, I just have to cancel them. I was commentating on my phone to our CEO in the last two or three games of the final site, unbelievable. And then Men's Goalball I believe China beat Lithuania in the last few seconds. Again, the roof came off.
So from what I've said, I hope you can see the games have something so special in the air. I hope that you the media have learned to put into words, the feelings that have been generated here. If not,take your time to learn how to do it and come back in Vancouver and come back in London and really write the stories that is going to express the Paralympic spirits. These are being very special games, thank you very much.
AFP
What is the legacy of these games in China both in sports and out of sports. And the question to Mr. Philip, one of the minor things of this Games has been the dispute of classification. What is the IPC going to do to improve the situation? Perhaps more out of the competition classifications. And is there more of a challenge now that games with intellectual disabilities are likely to come back for London?
Wang Wei
The legacy of the Paralympics is huge and far reaching. First of all, in terms of hardware, the accessible facilities have been improved, and a lot of things have been installed. About the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, they are going to be a landmark thing for the cause of people with disability in China. Not to mention in the venues, public areas, the accessible in the airport, everywhere I think things are being improved. In terms of the software, people's awareness, it's marvelous. People are beginning to respect more for people with disability because they are challenging their own limits. I think this is going to be a great legacy for Beijing for China. People understand more about the needs and how to care for people with disability. The public, by watching the competitions, they learn the Parlaympic spirits. Many young people, I think they'll take the watching later on for educating program, so they are more inspired and encouraged in their own life time, in their own life goal, in their strive to achieve their own goal. I can not say for enough what the legacy will be, but by the people's warmth, enthusiasm, in watching the games and expressing their sentiments for the Paralympic spirits, I think the legacy is going to be a long term legacy. And the longer time goes on, the more you feel about this.
Philip Craven
Coming back onto classification, you mentioned the world problems. It is not necessarily the simplest thing to understand for people who came to the games for the first time. I think that's why we have to work out on that. We could call it sports presentation. Make things more simple to understand, which doesn't mean we remove classes. We have to keep the competition fair and equal as possible. Out of competition, classifying is our goal. That is something that has been achieved in many sports. We have one or two problems in other sports. There are has been a little bit more than we like in classification of these games. We are looking at that. We review everything after the games. We make changes when needed and we move forward to the next summer games in London in 2012. You come with an idea of the athletes on the possibility of the reintroduction. If we can differentiate, but here it is not classification, it is eligibility. Does the athletes has the right to compete in the Paralympic Games or not? To put it in another way, could the athletes be termed a Paralympian or would the athletes only have the option to an Olympians. I am giving that as an example, since the athletes were excluded after the Sydney Games in 2000, we didn't make a lot of progress until the last year. And the reason for that is the great difficulty for the Federation and its former president, the new president there now, and in the year that he is in position, the progress that has been made has been pretty good. And we've made the statement that during these games, about this, and indications are looking quite positive that these athletes could come back in. That would not be a problem to classification, because they won't come back in unless there is a system that allows them to come back in.
Canadian Press in Vancouver
Two questions, as journalists I am off and asked to compare the Olympics and Paralympics. And my question to you is can they be compared or should they be compared? My second question is in the past, there has been discussions should the format continue with the Paralympics following the Olympics or maybe be in front of the Olympics or maybe be held in a totally different year? I'm wondering if you think this current system work the best?
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