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| North Korea's Rim Ju Song rests after competing at a men's 50 meter freestyle S6 heat at the 2012 Paralympics, on Tuesday in London. (AP Photo/ Lefteris Pitarakis) |
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London.
Reclusive North Korea on Tuesday made its maiden appearance at the Paralympic
Games but swimmer Rim Ju-Song trailed in last in his S6 50m freestyle swimming
heat.
Wild card
entry Rim, a left arm and left leg amputee after a construction site accident
at the age of six, finished the straight sprint at the Aquatics Centre in east
London in 47.87secs, nearly 18 sec behind the heat winner.
But the
16-year-old Rim said he was proud to have competed for his country — and
immediately set his sights high for the next Games in four years’ time.
“I’m very
honored to be the first Paralympian. I’m encouraged that many people cheered
for me today. I want to be the gold medallist in the next Paralympic Games in
Rio (de Janeiro, Brazil).”
North Korea
won four gold medals and two bronze at this summer’s London Olympics, finishing
20th in the overall medal table to register the country’s best performance
since Barcelona in 1992.
The
athletes returned home to a heroes’ welcome on August 17, with cheering crowds
lining the streets of the capital Pyongyang before Premier Choe Yong-Rim and
other top officials hosted a banquet reception, according to state media.
Vice
Premier Kim Yong-Jin said in a speech that the gold medallists had glorified
“the great era of Kim Jong-Un,” who took over as the country’s supreme leader
after his father Kim Jong-Il’s death in December 2011.
The
communist state has featured in international sport for many years, most
notably the 1966 football World Cup where they reached the quarter-finals,
losing to Eusebio’s Portugal 5-3.
But people
with physical or intellectual impairments have faced a long history of
discrimination. Acute malnutrition, which stunts development in children, has
exacerbated rates of disability, according to the United Nations.
South
Korean activists and human rights reports from the US State Department have
alleged in the past that disabled people were quarantined within camps far
outside Pyongyang and forcibly sterilised.
Charities
working in the country, however, have said that attitudes are slowly changing
and the government now offers welfare programmes for disabled people while
there is a para-sports center in Pyongyang.
Kim
Sung-Chol, the North Korea team doctor at the Games, said he doubted reports
about ill-treatment of people with disabilities in his home country.
“There is a
certain number of people with a disability. It is quite a normal thing. I don’t
think it’s true (about the camps). I saw some media saying that but I don’t
think it’s true,” he told reporters.
“People
normally live in the villages and in the towns. Of course they participate in
sport and art. It is quite normal in my country.”
Kim also
said he had been surprised at the media attention at the Games given to North
Korea, the nuclear-armed nation which former US president George W. Bush said
in 2002 was part of the “Axis of Evil” with Iraq and Iran.
The doctor
said that in future, more North Korean athletes were likely to take part in the
Games, which began last Wednesday and have been billed by organisers as the
biggest and most high-profile in the movement’s 52-year history.
“We are
preparing athletes for table tennis, powerlifting, boccia, wheelchair racing
and swimming but unfortunately we have had some time constraints,” he
explained.
“That’s why
we only have one swimmer participating. They are all preparing though and
observing here.”
Agence France-Presse
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