Paralympics: Cambodia bemoans high-tech nations

Cambodia's only athlete in the event will compete in the 100m and 200m sprints in the below-the-knee amputee category.

PHNOM PENH: Even after having the world’s highest percentage of amputees, Cambodia is sending just one athlete to the Paralympics, an event critics say increasingly favours nations that can afford the latest high tech gear. Thin Seng Hon will compete in the 100m and 200m sprints in the below-the-knee amputee category. Her ‘lucky leg’, as she calls the $2,500 J-shaped running blade which allows her to race, helped her to three podium places at a regional athletics meet last year. However, she doubts it will keep pace with the higher-tech prosthetics of her rivals in London. “I don’t expect to win a medal,” said the 28-year-old after a morning training session at Phnom Penh’s run-down Olympic Stadium.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2012.