Swiss Paralympics donates athletic wheelchairs to Gambia Paralympics

The Swiss Paralympics Committee have donated two athletics wheelchairs of international standard to the Gambia Paralympics wheelchairs athletics team, as part of their presentation head of the London Paralympics Games 2012.

Presenting the materials on behalf of the Swiss Paralympics Committee, to the Gambia Paralympics Committee, Laurent Risi, from the Swiss Federation Office for Migration, said the donation had been organised and offered by the Swiss House of Sports.

According to Mr Risi, the wheelchairs used to be personal materials from former Swiss professional athletes, noting that the wheelchairs will allow their Gambian friends to train harder and to be more competitive in every single way.

He revealed that the Swiss Paralympics Committee is very happy in helping out the Gambia Paralympics Committee  and that even in the future, “we will try to help out and support  the Gambia as good as we can”.

Mr Risi added: “We wish you all the best and are looking forward to seeing some good results.”

For his part, the treasurer of the Gambia Paralympics Committee, Suntu   thanked the Swiss Paralympics Committee for the laudable gesture, saying the wheelchairs are very expensive, which they would find very hard to afford to buy.

“On behalf of the committee we are very grateful and we hope that this relationship will continue in the near future,” he added.

It would be recalled that the Gambia Paralympics Committee athletes earlier last month participated in the classification and qualification process of the London 2012 Paralympics Games held in Tunisia.

The Gambia will be represented by Demba Jarju who qualified straight to the London 2012 Games while Isatou Nyang will go through wildcat.

This will be the first time in the history of The Gambia the country’s Paralympics Committee athletes will participate in the London Paralympics Games.