Asian Games: ‘We only term it an accident if somebody dies,’ says paragliding governing body as it insists sport is safe despite ‘incidents’
One prospective Hong Kong team-member was seriously injured in the build-up to the Games and there were three accidents in the competition as organisers point to ‘inherent’ risk in all sports
Sanjay Thapar, secretary general of the Airsport Federation of Asia (ASFA) explained how the body categorises injuries when quizzed on the sport’s safety during its Indonesia debut.
“Paragliding is safer than riding a motorbike in Jakarta,” Thapar said. “Any sport has its own inherent elements. Air sports has its own.
“In our sport, we classify these things as ‘accidents’ and ‘incidents’,” Thapar added. “We did have three incidents when our aim was to have none. Everything was in place. We had three incidents. We had no accidents. We would have termed it as an ‘accident’ if somebody would have died or if someone would have landed up with a very serious injury.”
In the event, three pilots were hospitalised during the nine-day competition.
Chinese pilot Wang Jianwei and Afghanistan flier Lida Hozoori were taken to hospital after crashing during the competition. Wang suffered a broken leg, whilst Hozoori was hospitalised for three days after suffering neck and back injuries in a crash.
