Partnership Extended to 2012.
Even as the 13th Paralympics in Beijing are still ongoing in sold-out arenas, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and the medical technology company Otto Bock HealthCare have extended their current cooperation agreement to 2012. This means the contract term covers the 2010 Paralympics in Vancouver as well as the 2012 games in London.
With many members and friends of the Paralympics family in attendance, IPC President Sir Philip Craven and Professor Hans Georg Näder, chairman and CEO of the Otto Bock Group signed the cooperation agreement in the IPC Lounge in Beijing. This lays the foundation for continued successful cooperation, which began with a partnership agreement covering the 2006 games in Turin and the current 2008 Paralympics in Beijing and was also concluded in Beijing back in 2005. Otto Bock also entered into cooperation agreements with the respective organization committees for those games.
In Beijing, Otto Bock is currently responsible for repair services including wheelchairs, prostheses and orthoses for 4,000 athletes from all over the world. The global group first provided technical service at the 1988 games in Seoul, and has continued to do so at all summer and winter Paralympics since then. The scope of technical support for Paralympic sports has grown continuously ever since.
“The games here in Beijing are not going to become the best, they are the best,” said Professor Hans Georg Näder, expressing his sincere compliments to the IPC, the organization committee BOCOG and the Chinese association for the disabled CDPF. “We are considered good at organization back home in Germany, but what you have put together here is even better.” Sir Philip Craven spoke of “20 wonderful years of Paralympics support from Otto Bock”. He warned against overusing the term partnership. “Our relationship with Otto Bock shows us what a true partnership is.”
The deployment of 136 orthopedic technicians from 19 countries in the central Otto Bock workshop located in the Paralympic Village and at 13 service stations right at the competition venues represents a new record. One week before the end of the Paralympics, the workshop has completed 1,400 jobs. The repair service is highly popular among the athletes; in some cases, the technical requirements for sports equipment subject to extreme stress are very high. Orthopedics technology feats in 2008 included the production of an entirely new transfemoral prosthesis in less than 24 hours for the sole Paralympics participant from Madagascar. His previous model was damaged beyond repair.
