Sydney: The Olympic and Paralympic Post - Mortem

Story and photos by Peter Cummins

In the Pattaya Mail of 15 September (Volume VIII, #37: Sydney and the Olympics), our special correspondent Peter Cummins wrote about visiting Sydney for the first time in 44 years, about a city in the last frenzy of preparing for the twenty-seventh Olympiad, the first of the new millennium. That is now history and almost three billion viewers world-wide agreed that the Australians had turned on, in the words of outgoing International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch, “the best Olympics ever.”

Sydney: what a beautiful city to enjoy. Darling Harbour at night.

On that occasion, while Australia was still basking in the glow of “Olympic euphoria”, Peter reported on a country which has undergone tremendous changes in this intervening half-century. But he remains convinced that Australia still has not attained to a real nation-hood, in spite of the country’s uniqueness and its huge success on the Olympic stage.

Another view of Darling Harbour

Then, just prior to the opening of the Tenth Paralympic Games last week, he sensed a despondency, a lack of direction; or, as one writer described it: “Is there a ‘quick-fix’ for the massive post-Olympic hangover gripping the country?”

Here are some random thoughts on the Paralympics and Australia.

The Tenth Paralympics

The Paralympics, opening some three weeks after the Olympics, came as a welcome respite. In what has been described as a “Post-Olympic depression”, Australians were reeling from an oft-revealed self-deprecating mood, the plunging Australian dollar and the faltering momentum of reconciliation with the indigenous people whose athletic feats had thrilled the world.

Paralympic Games opening ceremony

The ocean of woes that had been put aside during the heady days of the Olympics when the whole country went on an orgy of self-praise and a nationalistic fervour reaching jingoistic proportions, were temporarily subdued again.

The Australians, indeed, forgot their troubles when thousands of athletes, many severely impaired, came to Sydney from the far corners of the world to compete in the Games - often a daunting journey even for the able-bodied.

They took to the arenas and the waterways in an unforgettable display of courage, challenge, spirit and skill. The Australian paralympians totally dominated the Games but, the Thai team, too, did the Kingdom justice, winning four Gold medals. Pattaya’s own Supachai Koysub won the 200 metres wheelchair event in a record-breaking time and Prawat Wahoram won Gold in a spectacular record-breaking 10,000 metre wheelchair final.

The teams wheel past at the Paralympics

No one who saw it will ever forget the wheelchair basketball and the tenacity, speed and consummate skill of the competitors. And it was fierce competition, with collisions and confrontations, as the rival teams raced up and down the court at a tremendous pace. Right in front of the photographers’ floor-level area, a collision caused both players to over-turn in a total 360-degree configuration, land upright and return straight back into the fray.

The women’s 100 metre wheel-chair race

The start of the men’s 100-metres final saw a line-up at the blocks of the competitors with their artificial limbs. The fastest time was an incredible 11.3 seconds, upon which the winner, with huge white teeth and a grin that rivalled the sun, punched the air in typical style, danced and waved his carbon-fibre leg. The huge crowd went totally berserk and the athletes loved it.

On the starting blocks: Men’s 100 metre sprint

Two participants came in from a Pacific Island country to compete – on artificial homemade bamboo legs. It was a very short time only before, according to the officials involved, with broad smiles all around, “we had them fitted out with ‘state-of-the-art’ carbon-fibre jobs and some very up-market sporting outfits.” The athletes were too busy showing off their new legs to worry about honours for their country.

Sailing, too

Sailing was, of course, a focus of my interest and it was off to Rushcutter’s Bay to a superbly-organized marina adjoining Sydney’s Cruising Yacht Club. There were two classes of yacht, the three-person Sonar class and the tiny 2.4 metre class single-hander which has been dubbed as the former America’s Cup 12-meter Class in miniature”.

A helping hand into the 2.4 m. yacht

As Alan Kennedy, sailing correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald describes them: “From a distance, these superb little craft look like a fleet of elegant, old-fashioned yachts. As they draw closer, they start to ‘shrink’. By the time you are level, it seems that a model yacht has been turned loose on Sydney Harbour. Then you notice a person, head just above the level of the deck.”

Alongside the craft, parked on the pontoons, were the wheelchairs of the sailors, many of whom were lifted up and gently lowered into their craft by a small hoist.

Wheelchair basketball: fast and furious

This was, indeed, a new world for me and to see the sophistication of these craft was an amazing experience. Of course, to accommodate the lack of mobility of the sailors, rudder and all lines used to adjust and control were centred within the tiny cockpit: mast rake, boom vang, traveller, main and jib sheets. A weighted, fixed keel assured stability and, though the boats are unsinkable (“Titanic”, anyone?), they have been known to swamp occasionally.

It is almost like a sailing computer game and, according to the experts, is the only yacht-racing class where the able-bodied and the disadvantaged can both compete equally.

Just prior to the Paralympics I saw a documentary called “Three Minutes from Glory”, directed by Briton David Goldie. It is a brilliant account of the history of the Paralympic Games and the men and women therein, which can only have a chastening effect on any viewer.

The 2.4m mini-yacht: equal sailing for the able-bodied and the disadvantaged alike

David pointed out in his introduction that he had always wanted to do a documentary on the Paralympics, but was always side-tracked by the bigger Olympiad. Then, right after the Barcelona Olympics and Paralympics in 1992, he decided, adding the chilling realization that many of the athletes of future Paralympic Games “had not yet had their accident”. Wheelchair racers, 14-year-olds Christie Shelton and Holly Lasmore, 16-year-old Angie Ballard and Peter Thompson, world yacht racing champion in the 2.4 metre class all became victims after David’s 1992 portend.

Now, with an equally-successful - and difficult to manage – Paralympics behind them, perhaps the national cloud will lift. In Sydney, certainly, the citizens enjoy one of the world’s finest cities.

I returned 44 years after I left, to a jewel of a city which, for the third time in successive years, has been voted as the world’s best city to visit and the world’s best lifestyle city by a number of international publications, including the prestigious US magazine Travel and Leisure. The International Congress and Conventional Association have just voted Sydney as “the World’s Number One Convention City”.

I feel convinced that the spirit of the Olympics and Paralympics has become part of the public psyche and, perhaps, the flawless staging of these two greatest events in the sporting world will give Australia its rightful place as a the country of the future: in essence, its nationhood.

(Next time: Vignettes from a voyager.)

14th Phuket King’s Cup Regatta ready to sail

Anchors ‘a-weigh’ as Volvo ‘weighs’ in with sponsorship

Story and photos
by Peter Cummins

At a press conference for the forthcoming Phuket King’s Cup Regatta, held at the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit last week, Karl-Johan Sandesjo, President of Volvo Car (Thailand) announced that Volvo was joining the Regatta as principal sponsor this year, for the first time.

Volvo chief, Karl-Johan Sandesjo (L) and regatta champion Bill Gasson pose under the Volvo logo

Preparations for this annual tribute to HM the King of Thailand are well advanced and, really, it’s only a matter of the expected 100 entries to weigh anchor and go racing three weeks from now.

“We are proud to be at the helm of this year’s Regatta,” the Volvo President informed the large gathering of press and media representatives. “For more than three decades, Volvo has supported many exclusive sports, thereby encouraging active, modern and dynamic lifestyles, under our motto Volvo For Life,” he added.

Nigel Hardy (3rd right) runs the press conference - and the Regatta

“Sailing fits very well into our global sponsorship strategy,” Mr Sandesjo continued, noting that Volvo has taken over sponsorship from Whitbread of the quadrennial round-the-world yacht race. Now known as the Volvo Ocean Race, it will start from Southampton in September next year.

Nigel J. Hardy, president of the 2000 King’s Cup Regatta organizing committee, outlined format changes for the 2000 event aimed, as were changes in preceding years, to streamline and generally enhance the spectacular event, incorporating the needs of the sponsors, the participants, the spectators and, not the least, the press and media.

Radab Kanjana-Vanit goes every year to Phuket from his Sriracha base - as did his late father Rachot.

Two major innovations are that the 2000 Regatta will be sailed, in its entirety, off-shore and in-shore along the Phuket Coast. Thus, the Regatta’s “blue riband” event, the Volvo Andaman Sea Race, will no longer sail from Koh Phi Phi but, rather, will be raced around Koh Racha, the crown jewel in the beautiful cluster of islands close to Phuket.

A second innovation, according to Andy Dowden, Regatta vice president of racing, “is the introduction of a new division - the Premier Cruising Class - to cater to the increasing number of super-yachts which now ply regional waters”.

Added to another big fleet of state-of-the-art racing yachts, crewed by some of the world’s best sailors, the vista of these mega-yachts, racing under enormous spinnakers “will be awesome”, contends Andy (press and media, please note!).

(L. to R.) Andrew T. Owen (Proteus), Andy Dowden (Regatta Committee) and Karl-Johan Sandesjo (Volvo)

Even without major changes, it is interesting to note that the recent “Event of the Year” award was granted to the Phuket King’s Cup Regatta by the Thailand Incentive and Convention Association, representing the first time that a yacht-racing event has been so honoured.

H.E. Adisai Potharamik, minister attached to the Prime Minister’s office in Charge of Tourism, presented the accolade at a ceremony held recently at the Royal Cliff Beach Resort, Pattaya. William J. Gasson, four times Phuket King’s Cup racing class champion, accepted the award on behalf of the organizing committee.

The press conference panel in action

Nigel Hardy also emphasized a new and exciting regional yacht-racing development, the Asian Yachting Circuit, which will promote the King’s Cup, along with other Asian yacht-racing events, “through extensive world-wide television coverage. With a target audience in excess of 400 million viewers, the benefits to the King’s Cup, our sponsors and Thailand, generally, are enormous,” Nigel noted.

Andrew T. Owen from the Hong Kong-based Proteus group, which is the driving force behind this regional development, explained that this new concept is basically an expansion of the Sir Thomas Lipton tri-regatta championship, encompassing Malaysia’s Raja Muda International, the Phuket King’s Cup and the Singapore Straits Regattas.

Bill Gasson received the “Event of the Year” Award for the Phuket Regatta Committee

The skipper and crew with the best aggregate placing were awarded the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy, donated by the tea magnate to the then Royal Singapore - now the Republic of Singapore - Yacht Club. The ornate solid silver cup was given to Sir Thomas by an adoring American public for his superb sportsmanship and good-will, after losing five challenges for the America’s Cup in the early 1900’s.

Now, Andrew pointed out, the annual San Fernando Race, Hong Kong and the Philippines in mid-April, will become the fourth regatta in the Asian circuit and, instead of the Lipton Cup being presented at the Phuket King’s Cup, it will now be awarded in Hong Kong at the end of April.

The Fourteenth Phuket King’s Cup Regatta will be sailed over His Majesty the King’s seventy-third birthday week, from the second to the ninth of December. Each year since the founding in 1987, the Regatta is re-dedicated to honouring the birthday of the Regatta Royal Patron who graciously bestows the handsome permanent King’s Cup on the winners each year.

(L. to R.) Karl-Johan Sandesjo, Nigel Hardy and Royal Varuna Flag Commodore Rut Subniran address the Regatta press conference.

Nigel was quick to express the gratitude of all concerned with the Regatta, for the generous sponsorship, without which there would be no event. Volvo, of course, and “the Regatta mainstays - hosts Kata Beach Resort, QBE Insurers, Boonrawd Breweries, Thai Airways and the Royal Thai Navy - all as much a part of the event as ever.” The House of Kangaroo, said CEO John Beard, “was so pleased with its 1999 involvement that it even brought its European partners ‘aboard’ this year.”

The Sir Thomas Lipton Cup: next stop Hong Kong.

Other co-sponsors include Laguna Phuket, Sunsail, the Boathouse Wine and Grill, the Phuket Island Resort and supporting sponsors Neil Pryde, the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the Yacht Haven Marina, Phuket.com, Don’s Cafe, Thai Marine Leisure, Phuket Water Taxis and Thavorn Beach Village. Organizing Clubs are the Royal Varuna Yacht Club, the Phuket Yacht Club and the Yacht Racing Association of Thailand.

The Phuket Magazine, Image Asia, and beverage sponsors Boonrawd, Berlei Jucker and Pepsi will keep thirst at bay.

Among the many sponsors of the racing, the Boathouse Wine and Grill at Kata Beach, adjacent to the Regatta’s home base, the Kata Group, has the honour of hosting the race on the King’s birthday, the fifth of December. This is most appropriate, for the designer and owner of the splendid Boathouse, M.L. Tri Devakul is one of the Regatta founders and has been a loyal and staunch supporter throughout the years since then.

The Boathouse is planning a special event for the evening which promises to be a spectacular “son et lumiere”. But, like the superb opening ceremony of the 27th Olympiad at Sydney in September which was kept “under wraps” until it actually happened, the Boathouse celebration will be revealed only on the night of the fifth of December. M.L. Tri does not expect to top the Sydney opening crowd of 110,000 but he does expect an exciting event on the sands.

So, anchors a-weigh, on to Phuket and weigh-in at the first King’s Cup Regatta of the new millennium.

by Michael Mealyer

The Lodge Pattaya West Winds in its Community Charity Drive this year has identified the Ban Poonsri Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Pattaya as the beneficiary. In the past only cash contributions were made to the Centre. The feeling amongst the members is that the provision should not be limited to cash but should be interactive and ongoing, which would identify the Lodge with the charity.

RWM Michael Mealyer and committee members of the Lodge Pattaya West Winds during a preliminary visit to the drug centre to ascertain the feasibility of setting up a workshop. Police Col. Jirat Pichitpai presented the lodge with a holy “Luang Por Sothorn” Buddha image.

An interactive project would enable the Lodge to make a charitable contribution of money, skills, materials and time. This process would be more meaningful and rewarding to both the members of the Lodge and the beneficiaries.

Recognition that the profiles of those with drug problems in Pattaya were mainly teenagers between the ages of 14 and 20 years is a reminder of just how serious and debilitating drugs are as a social problem. The data would seem to link with the limit of Thai mandatory primary education up to the age of 13 years.

Research in the early 90s shows that secondary education demands full financial responsibility from parents, which means only 31% of Thai students progress to secondary education. This leaves 69% of Thai youth with no secondary education.

With no skills, no prospects and little self esteem, many teenagers turn to drugs. Whilst the well known organic drugs are still common, there has been an exponential growth in the use of chemical drugs like amphetamines, including the aptly named ‘Ya Ba’, with devastating effects on Thai youth. Those with drug problems who have the courage for rehabilitation, which on average lasts three months, have few outlets at the Ban Poonsri Drug Rehabilitation Centre. Presently the facilities they have allow them to play snooker, basketball or watch TV.

The philosophy of Lodge Pattaya West Winds is to match their ability to provide charity. In this context the charity project for the Drug Rehabilitation Centre has no fixed time agenda and is to be called the ‘West Winds Workshop.’ The WWW Project should make best use of the skills and resources of all the LPWW members to pass those skills on. The charity from each member could take the form of any one of the following: money, skills, materials and time or a combination of any to suit each member of the Lodge. Initially the skills of wood and metal craft will be taught but other skills are to follow. The Lodge also welcomes the participation of non members including local Thai craftsmen in the ‘West Winds Workshop’ project.

The Rotary Club
of Jomtien-Pattaya

Skal International

Pattaya Fun City
By The Sea