FESPIC games open in grand Thai style
FESPIC games open in grand Thai style
BANGKOK (Agencies): Thousands of dancers, actors and singers performed in lavish ceremonies Sunday to open a week-long competition for 2,423 disabled athletes from 34 countries.
Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn presided over the opening of the 7th Far East and South Pacific Games for the Disabled, or FESPIC Games.
The event comes three weeks after Thailand hosted the Asian Games and organizers hope the FESPIC Games will be equally successful. It is the first time they will be held in Thailand.
Thailand put its colorful traditions on display in the ceremonies at the Thammasit Rangsit stadium, with performers of everything from traditional ballet to Thai boxing and the village cockfight.
Marching bands, cheer leaders and flag artists added a modern note in scenes symbolizing friendship and unity.
Fireworks lit up the night sky. Uniformed schoolchildren - some in wheelchairs - filled the 20,000-seat stadium, applauding and waving colored fans to create a festive backdrop.
The athletes, whose disabilities range from amputation to blindness to mental impairment, will compete in 15 sports for 467 gold medals. Several athletes from Cambodia have lost limbs from mines.
The sports are athletics, wheelchair basketball, boccia, badminton, archery, powerlifiting, goalball, swimming, wheelchair fencing, judo, table tennis, shooting, wheelchair tennis, volleyball and soccer.
Events are tailored to specific handicaps, such as separate 100 meter races for competitors missing legs and those who are blind.
Thailand, the host, has fielded the largest number of athletes at 386, followed by China's 196.
Japan hosted the first FESPIC Games in 1975 with the aim of strengthening friendship among the disabled and promoting rehabilitation of disabilities through sports.
The motto of this year's Games is "Equality in One World". The FESPIC Games are held every four years between the Paralympic Games.
Meanwhile, Thailand is hoping to make a small profit of about US$2.9 million from last month's Asian Games, reports here said.
Preliminary figures put the event marginally in the black, with revenues of about 2.2 billion baht ($61.1 million) and expenses of 2.1 billion baht, according to weekend reports.
The Nation daily quoted Games budget officials as saying the books were not yet closed but a profit was likely despite the difficulties posed by Thailand's worst-ever economic recession.
Thailand won accolades from international sports officials for successfully hosting the Games after years of fierce criticism over problem-plagued preparations.