'Put equal emphasis on Paralympics'

Kim Sung-il, president of the Korea Paralympic Committee (KPC) / Korea Times photo

KPC head proposes

bias-free 2018

Winter Olympics

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Retired General Kim Sung-il, president of the Korea Paralympic Committee (KPC), feels bad whenever he visits the northeastern city of Gangneung on business trips to Gangwon Province.

There is a huge billboard near the Yeongdong Expressway facing the coastal city. It reads, “2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics,” without mentioning the Paralympics that will start on March 9, 2018, for 10 days, once the Winter Olympic Games are completed on Feb. 25.

“I was wondering why the billboard has no information about the Paralympics,” he said during a recent interview with The Korea Times. “There’s enough space to add information that PyeongChang Paralympic Games are also to be held.”

Gangneung is the city where the PyeongChang Olympic and Paralympic Games are to be held in 2018, along with PyeongChang and Jeongseon counties.

Following his first discovery of the signboard, Kim encouraged Gangwon Province Governor Choi Moon-soon and the PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games (POCOG) to alter the billboard to add the Paralympics as well in order to better inform the public.

“I even told them that I would be willing to pay if a financial reason is a barrier to fixing the signboard to convey my seriousness about the issue,” he said.

His voice, however, went unheard. Kim considers their turning a deaf ear to his repeated calls as evidence of the local government’s and POCOG’s lukewarm support for the Paralympics.

Elected as KPC president in 2013, Kim, 68, is the first leader without a disability overseeing the national Paralympic committee. His bond with the athletes with disabilities was first forged in 2006 after he read a newspaper article about the Teddy Bear Soccer Team consisting of the players with cerebral palsy. According to the article, the soccer players had a hard time finding stadiums where they could practice soccer to prepare for the then forthcoming international soccer games overseas.

The plight facing those athletes reminded Kim, then Air Force Chief of Staff, of the spacious, well-equipped facilities of his alma mater _ the Korea Air Force Academy. Immediately after reading the newspaper article, he called the superintendent of the military academy to check if the athletes with disabilities could take advantage of the field there, a favor which was accepted. The Teddy Bear Soccer Team members practiced there.

Later on, his ties with the soccer players paved way for his taking the helm in the leadership of the Korea Football Association for the Disabled after he retired from the military and then became chairman of the 2014 Asia Para Games held in the port city of Incheon.

While fulfilling his duties at the Asia Para Games, Kim said he experienced how hard it is to change public perception of athletes with disabilities.

“In the past, Korean parents considered children with disabilities a shame to their family, so they were reluctant to take their disabled children outside their home for fear of their neighbors’ negative reactions. I think such a bad tradition still has some hold on this society,” he said.

To hold the PyeongChang Paralympics successfully, he said Korean society must overcome its bias against people with disabilities.

As the clock is ticking for the Winter Olympic Games which has just under 500 days to go, Kim is worried if the PyeongChang Paralympics will turn out to be as successful as those held in London or Rio were.

He has been on business trips to Beijing, London and most recently Rio de Janeiro for the Paralympics there. He said all three Paralympic events were fantastic and Paralympic sports were very popular there.

“In London, I saw many parents who brought their children to stadiums where Paralympic Games were held,” he said. “Some parents told me that Paralympic stadiums are a great place for their children to learn about life because they could realize that all those athletes are heroes born out of adversity.”

Kim said Rio Paralympic fans were as great as Londoners. “Spectators cheered not only for their national team athletes but also for foreign players. I saw many Brazilian spectators who applauded when Korean or other foreign athletes won,” he said. “I was moved. The Paralympic Games were so popular there, which was very impressive.”

He said Paralympic sports are fun and enjoyable. Therefore, he said if the public knows more about those games, they would be drawn to them.

For example, he said sledge hockey, which is the Paralympic version of ice hockey, is one of the most popular sports drawing many spectators.

“Players with disabilities use their hands to shoot the puck to score goals and their hands and arms are also used when they propel themselves on the ice,” he said. “Accordingly, sledge hockey is a much more powerful sport than ice hockey and spectators can feel the power and strength of the athletes if they watch the game.”

Like ice hockey, each team consisting of six players attempts to outscore its opponent by shooting the puck across the ice and into the opposing goal. Players use sticks with a spike-end and a blade-end.