Paralympic Village

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-09-06 09:20

The Paralympic Village, transformed from the Olympic Village, will play host to over 7,000 athletes and officials from 148 countries and regions.

Tactile and accessible pavements, special accessories and various facilities have been added to the village to meet the needs of physically challenged athletes.

"The serving tables were all lowered, the passageways were also enlarged and wheelchair-traction services by golf carts are also available," says Chen Zhili, the Paralympic Village Mayor. The village has 42 apartment buildings, a hospital, bank, places of worship, as well as a wheelchair storage center, classification coordination center, and a prosthetics, orthotics and wheelchair repair center.

Qingdao

Qingdao has undertaken a wide range of work to build a barrier-free sailing venue. Obstacle-free lifts and slopes and passages wider than 1.2 m will ensure physically challenged sailors easy access to venues and buildings including the Administration Center, the Athlete Center and the Paralympic Village. Phone booths, washrooms and dressing rooms have been rebuilt to meet the needs of people with disabilities.

On the competition sites, three 60-m-long barrier-free pontoons are fenced with wooden edges and six suspension devices were outfitted to help sailors safely board their boats.

Airport

As a key non-competition venue of the Games, Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) has been renovated to suit the needs of people with disabilities.

The new Terminal 3 features more than 400 accessible facilities including lowered counters and telephone booths, barrier-free passages, rest rooms and elevators, and special paths for the blind. Other measures include special parking spaces for people with physical impairments and blinking light board indicators for people with hearing impairments. The changes at T3 have cut processing times for Paralympic teams by 40 percent.

(China Daily 09/06/2008 page5)