Forum held ahead of 2014 Incheon Asian Para Games

The 2014 Inclusive Sport and Society Forum was held at the Incheon Songdo POSCO E&C Tower on Friday, one day before the opening of the 2014 Incheon Asian Para Games.

The forum, which the Korean Paralympic Committee presided, was jointly hosted by the Inclusive Sport and Society Forum Organizing Committee (ISSOC) and UN Office on Sport for Development and Peace (UNODP). Saenuri Party Rep. Na Kyung-won, a member of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), is the chief of the ISSOC.

At the forum on Friday, British House of Lords member Chris Holmes gave the keynote speech. He is the winner of nine gold medals at the Paralympics, where he participated as a swimmer with vision difficulties. Holmes was the chief of the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympic organizing committees and made sizable contributions to the London events being dubbed the best ever. In recognition of this feat he was named a member of the House of Lords last year. David Lega, a panel member at the forum, is also a former swimmer who won the Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award at the 1996 Atlanta Paralympics, is now a deputy mayor of Gothenburg in Sweden.

Some 200 attendees at the forum included International Paralympic Committee President Philip Craven, members of National Paralympic Committees and officials from international organizations, in addition to officials in the sports circles and the government. "These are efforts for the disabled and non-disabled to become one and for the international community to be together with the disabled," said Na.