Twenty-three technicians from 10 countries repair sport equipment for Paralympic athletes at the Ottobock Repair Service Center for Prosthetics, Orthotics and Wheelchairs, in the PyeongChang Paralympic Village on March 14.
By Korea.net PyeongChang Special Report Team
Photos = Kim Sunjoo
Pyeongchang | March 15, 2018
On the afternoon of March 14, machine sounds were constantly heard at the Ottobock Repair Service Center for Prosthetics Orthotics and Wheelchairs in the PyeongChang Paralympic Village.
The repair center, which has been officially sponsored since the Seoul 1988 Paralympic Summer Games, is a multi-functional repair center that repairs curling wheelchairs, ice hockey equipment, prosthetic limbs and other sport equipment free-of-charge for the Paralympic athletes. There’s no facility like this at the Olympics.
The repair center is open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. during the Paralympics and is filled with over 8,000 parts and pieces, along with welding machines, sewing machines, grinders and other repair tools from Germany.
On the large workbench in the center, 23 technicians from 10 countries were occupied with grinding wheelchair tires and welding broken ice hockey sleds.
In addition to the sport equipment, the technicians have also repaired glasses, luggage, hiking boots and trousers that the athletes brought, as the athletes came in and asked, “Can this also be repaired?”
Wang Tiegang, a welding technician from Beijing, said, “The most rewarding moment was when I repaired the sled of a U.S. hockey player during the para ice hockey mixed preliminary round group B match between Korea and the U.S. on March 13.”
Japanese technician Hiroki Nakajima repairs a wheelchair wheel at the Ottobock Repair Service Center for Prosthetics, Orthotics and Wheelchairs.
Nakajima Hiroki, a Japanese technician, said with pride that, “With the development of various technologies and tools, more sports are available for the disabled, and we have big roles in this area.”
The repair center has provided a total of 280 individual repairs since the Paralympic Games opened.
Peter Franzel, the organizing director of the company that provides the service, said, “We hope that more athletes will come and enjoy our repair services so that they can return home without any problems after the Paralympics. Hopefully, the Paralympic Games could influence Korean society so that disabled people who are physically capable of exercising, but can’t do it, would have an opportunity to come out into society at large.”
kgh89@korea.kr
