While one set of Olympic Games is long finished, another just wrapped up in London. The Paralympics Games kicked off on Aug. 29, finishing Sunday. British Ambassador Scott Wightman was among those who followed the action.
“I visited the Incheon training facility in December so I was able to meet some of the athletes then,” Wightman told The Korea Herald at his residence in Seoul on Tuesday. “We’ve had a couple of the athletes that took part in an event that we arranged to mark 100 days before the opening ceremony of the Paralympics.”
Among the Korean athletes Wightman said he watched out for were Oh Sang-ho, in wheelchair tennis, Ji Kwang-min, in boccia (a unique Paralympic sport played with a ball fitted with a bell), Hong Seok-man, in athletics, and Kim Seon-mee, in wheelchair fencing.
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British Ambassador Scott Wightman (Kim Myung-sub/The Korea Herald) |
“Oh Seung-ho ... did a guest blog on our website and he won the gold in the wheelchair tennis doubles at the KL Asian Paralympics Games earlier this year,” said Wightman.
Korea, which has competed at every Paralympics since 1968, was on course to finish the Games with at least 18 medals as of Friday ― a successful Games by any measure. But Wightman said he would like to see the Korean media take a leaf from the U.K.’s book and have more coverage of the events in the future.
“Honestly, I’d like to see a bit more on the television here. I think the opening ceremony was well covered by the Korea media, both on television and by the print media as well, with Steven Hawking’s involvement,” he said.
“Back in the U.K., Channel 4 television has 150 hours’ worth of live programming. And that’s why 2.3 million tickets have been sold to members of the British public in the U.K. So the athletes are getting fantastic support at the event themselves.”
Not only are the Games a great sporting occasion, according to Wightman, but an opportunity for knowledge sharing with Korea. British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced a Host2Host agreement earlier this year aimed at helping British firms win contracts for sporting events such as the Asian Games 2014 and PyeongChang Winter Olympics 2018.
“The idea of sustainability, making the Games green, focusing on the athletes, building the Paralympics, making that an integrated event, that’s been there since we won the bid in Singapore in 2005 and I think there’s a great opportunity to share that experience with organizers here as well.”
At the moment, the U.K.’s main focus of Korea relations is in education and business, according to the ambassador, who hopes to see more students traveling between the countries study and increases in trade and enterprise. Bilateral trade between the two countries is about $10.3 billion.
This year has seen significant changes in how migration between the countries is managed. In July, controversial changes to the U.K.’s family settlement rules were announced to tackle welfare dependency and fake marriages. As about 300 Korean spouses were granted settlement visas for the U.K. in 2010, the visa changes will likely affect hundreds of Koreans every year. Wightman said that while he could not comment on specific cases, he was confident that the U.K. would continue welcoming Britons with foreign spouses back to their home country.
“We absolutely welcome back to the U.K. people who want to establish a family with a foreign spouse or partner in circumstances in which they are going to able to support their family and be able to support integration into British society,” said the ambassador.
“That’s always been the case and that’s not changing. But what I think is reasonable for the government to try to ensure is that, in these circumstances, the family is not going to become a burden on the taxpayer, and that’s really what these adjustments in the rules are focused on ensuring.”
By John Power (
john.power@heraldcorp.com)
