On 10 March, the Austrian Embassy in Beijing, the Austrian National Tourism Administration and the Commercial Section of the Austrian Embassy in China held an experience activity with the theme of "Fairy Tale Kingdom of the Ice and Snow World" at the Austrian Embassy, which highlighted the experience of the ice and snow sports power Austria in the Paralympic ice and snow sports.
At the event site, the real-time video connection was made to Peter Franzel, the head of the Wheelchair Prosthetic Repair Center in the Yanqing Area of the Beijing Winter Paralympic Games, who highlighted the importance of the repair center for disabled athletes, and introduced the work flow in the maintenance center and the display of the main maintenance equipment.
In fact, many of the members who provide wheelchair prosthetic repair services in the three Winter Olympic villages and competition venues of the Beijing Winter Paralympic Games are ottobock, a German company with research and development centers in Austria, which has been serving the Paralympic Games since 1988. Among them, Heinrich Popov, a prosthetic maintenance technician known during the Beijing Winter Paralympic Games, was a gold medalist in the 100-meter sprint event at the London Paralympic Games, and won a silver medal in the long jump event at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, after which he announced his retirement and became a prosthetic orthopedic technician at Ottobock.
During the Beijing Winter Paralympic Games, Ottobock assembled a team of nearly 50 people from 12 countries, including 40 technical experts (prosthetic orthopedic technicians, wheelchair technicians and professional welders), including 9 technicians from China. Zhu Siwei, a technician from the China Assistive Devices Center for the Disabled, was one of the team selected to join Ottobock to carry out a rapid repair of the bobsleigh seat for Liu Zixu, the first gold medalist of the Chinese Winter Paralympic Games, to ensure that Liu Zixu successfully participated in the next day's competition.
At the event on the 10th, the staff from the Austrian National Tourism Administration also highlighted the barrier-free experience in the development of ice and snow sports for the disabled in Austria; Ms. Yang Yang and Ms. Zhu Yilin from the China Association for the Deaf also introduced and shared the participation of Chinese hearing impaired people in sports.
Bai Minghao, Commercial Counsellor of the Austrian Embassy in China, introduced the Austrian Paralympic delegation, saying: "I am proud that Austria can provide equipment support for the Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, such as cable cars, snow machines, ice surface manufacturing, access control systems, timing systems, special equipment and skis. Over the past four years, Austria has exported more than 20 billion euros worth of winter sports products to China. Of course, this is not only for the Winter Olympics, but for the expanding emerging winter sports market across China. ”
Bai Minghao also said that the Beijing Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympic Games have led to the rapid development of China's ice and snow market, and through the Winter Olympic Games and the Winter Paralympic Games, more people have learned about skiing, skating and other ice and snow sports. "This is also more of an opportunity for Austria, and we are very optimistic about the future of China's ice and snow sports market."