IPC president all praise for Beijing ahead of Paralympic Games

Beijing has done such a good job in transforming the Olympic city into a Paralympic city that the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) president Philip Craven felt like "over the moon."

"On the night the Olympic flame went out in the National Stadium, already you were transforming the city, never been seen before, the best ever here in Beijing," Craven told reporters here on Tuesday. "This is the Paralympic city now, no longer the Olympic city. That just goes to show the BOCOG and the leadership of the people expecting the Paralympic Games not as a second Olympic Games. So we are just so pleased, we are over the moon!"

Four days before the opening ceremony of the first Paralympic Games to be operated by the same organizing committee of the Olympic Games, the IPC president said this could be the launch pad for the Paralympic Movement to move to the next level.

"At this stage all the signs are very very positive. The Paralympic Games in Beijing could well be the launch pad for the Paralympic Movement to move to the next level, or to move onto a new ladder," he said. "Not the same ladder, we are going to a higher ladder and can now start to climb."

If this Paralympic Games will be the best ever? Craven thought it was too early to grade the organizers, but he can wait no longer to give full compliments to the Paralympic Village, the same one used during the Beijing Olympic Games.

"I can't say the Games is the best ever at the moment. Maybe I will do, maybe I won't," said Craven. "But the Paralympians are all excited about being here, about being in a wonderful Paralympic Village, that village over there is more certain the best ever."

"The Paralympic Village is just fantastic. We've got the very best accommodation, the very best food, good transport."

Craven was also content with the fact that China had been doing its best to fulfill its promise of making the Beijing Olympic Games and Paralympic Games equally splendid.

"The airport is very important for the people who use wheelchairs and what's been put in place at the Capital Airport is state-of-the-art," he said. "In fact the BOCOG has devised certain procedures that we have never seen before. That means when you get off the plane, very quickly after the plane arrives, your chair is waiting for you there. That's one example."