Japan's visiting Paralympic chief said his country learned how to take care of its people with disabilities by holding the 1964 Tokyo Paralympics and said he believed China will follow suit after this September's Paralympics.
"According to our experience the Paralympic Games produced a huge boost for the welfare of people with disabilities in the host country," said Isao Hokugo, president of the Japan Paralympic Committee (JPC), while attending a meeting held at the residential compound of the Japanese ambassador to China on Monday.
Senior officials from the China Disabled Persons' Federation, including vice-president Wang Xinxian and sports director Jia Yong, met with the JPC president. Paralympic officials and medical specialists from the two countries also attended the meeting at the invitation of the Japanese ambassador Yuji Miyamoto.
"It is not just the Games itself that creates an impact, but the years after the Games," said Hokugo, who has headed the JPC since 1999 and is on the bidding board for the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo.
The Tokyo Paralympics in 1964 was the first Olympic-style event for athletes with disabilities in Asia, after the success of the inaugural Paralympics, soon after the Rome Olympics in 1960. The Rome Paralympics was officially known as the 9th Annual International Stoke Mandeville Games, named after a hospital for WWII veterans in England, where Sir Ludwig Guttmann organized a sports competition for soldiers recovering from spinal cord injuries in 1948.
Japan won just one gold medal at the 1964 Games, but this quickly improved. The country was in 10th position in the Athens Paralympics medal tally, with 52 medals, including 17 golds.
