Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Date:         Thu, 7 Jan 1993 17:11:55 -0500
              USENET." <VIETNET@USCVM.BITNET>
From:         Nhan Tran <tran@PEORA.SDC.CCUR.COM>
Subject:      NEWS/VN: Thai wins VN's 1st wheelchair race

01/02

THAI WINS VIETNAM'S FIRST WHEELCHAIR RACE

    By Bill Tarrant
    HANOI, Jan 2, Reuter - A 20-year-old from Thailand who was born without
legs whipped around a scenic lake in central Hanoi on Saturday in his sleekly-
built three-wheeler to win Vietnam's first wheelchair race.
    Prasopchok Klunngern flashed past the finishing line of the 10-km (six-
mile) race in 24 minutes 40 seconds, almost five minutes ahead of Wong Chi-
keung of Hong Kong.
    On Sunday Hanoi will stage a marathon road race, the capital's first
international sporting event since Vietnam won independence from France nearly
40 years ago.
    Wheelchair racing has recently become a featured event at major road races
and marathons around the world, said Graham Edwards, minister of sports and
recreation in Western Australia.
    "I think disabled sport is still quite young but is gaining in emphasis,"
said Edwards after participating in the race. He lost both legs in a landmine
blast 22 years ago while serving with the Australian army in the Vietnam War.
    "I really look forward to a time when disabled sport will be part of,
rather than separate from, all major sporting events."
    "Wheelchair athletes are fit and, aside from obviously being shorter than
the others, train just as professionally and work just as hard at their
skills," Edwards said.
    Prasopchok, an electronics worker, is the current Thai wheelchair champion.
    He was accompanied by a coach and a manager and plans to compete in a race
in Japan next month on a budding Asian wheelchair racing circuit.
    He said his carbon-fibre three-wheeler, so light it can be picked up with
one finger, was custom-designed in the United States at a cost of around
$10,000.
    Wong, who contracted polio as a child, has won wheelchair races in Hong
Kong, Britain and Macau.
    Thousands of spectators cheered the contestants as they zipped along in
their chairs over the bumpy road around scenic Hoan Kiem lake in central Hanoi.
    Some 450 competitors from 20 countries, including Vietnam, have registered
for various events at the Vietnam marathon, held for the first time last year
in Ho Chi Minh City.
    "This is the first time we have organised a major sports event in our
capital," said Hanoi sports director Hoang Vinh Giang.
    Runners from Japan, the United States, Russia, Libya, Britain, Germany and
southeast Asia will compete in the marathon and half marathon on Sunday.
    World-class marathon runners such as Doug Kurtis of the United States,
which does not have diplomatic ties with Vietnam, and last year's winner Tim
Soutar of Hong Kong will compete for a total of $30,000 in prize money, race
organisers said.
    Known for decades as a country at war and now one of the last citadels of
communism, Hanoi has opened up to the world over the past few years, wooing
foreign investment and re-establishing diplomatic relations with nations that
cut ties after Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December 1979.
    The race in Hanoi will be recognised as a qualifying event for the world's
top marathons, including those in London, Tokyo and New York.