Tokyo, 1 September, /AJMEDIA/
“We render our great and deep gratitude to those who contributed to Azerbaijani Paralympians’ achievements at the Tokyo Paralympic Games. However, the games still continue and only half of our sportsmen participated in competitions and I assure you that our other Paralympians will participate in competitions successfully”.
Kamal Mammadov, Secretary-General of Azerbaijan National Paralympics Committee stated these words. K. Mammadov noted that 6 days of competition had left and our country holds 8th place among 163 participating countries gaining 9 gold and 4 bronze medals during the past period. If we compare the population and sport potential of the countries that are leading competition such as China, the USA, Russia, Great Britain, Ukraine and Brazil, I would say that the republic of Azerbaijan having only 10 million population would take the lead by its achievements with its percentage rate.
The Secretary-General emphasized that great attention and care stands as a foundation for this success: “We give our appreciation to Ilham Aliyev, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the first lady Mehriban Aliyeva for their supports and congratulations to our athletes on social networks. This is a great motivation for our sportsmen”.
K. Mammadov, having emphasized on difficulties that our team faced. He noted that disclosure of COVID-19 infection of Mr. Ramil Gasimov (winner of Rio-2016 Paralympics Games) resulted in quarantining 11 people at the first stage. Later on, 8 people were quarantined.
These greatly and psychologically affected our athletes. Although they were isolated from the team completely, they used nourishments in accordance with quarantine provisions. Our athletes did not give up in spite of the allocation of small rooms for training instead of training halls, and depriving of fresh air. Contrarily, they showed great perseverance and equanimity and gained desirable results. Thus, not only this condition makes them not to give up, but also they become more striving and struggling. To my mind, great spiritual enthusiasm emerged after the Karabag victory, was the foundation for this achievement. Other features were not able to break such higher psychological perseverance. Truthfully, our athletes demonstrated great performances. They achieved the targeted goals”.
Moreover, the Secretary General, having noted the other deficiencies, expressed that the directorate of ANPC knew about them and took suitable measures in order to avoid them. As Ilgar Rahimov, president of the Committee said: “each of our athletes came here to obtain a medal and we will take all necessary measures in this direction”.
K. Mammadov, having noted that not only committee partners but also other relevant authorities supported the success of our athletes, emphasized that the embassy of Azerbaijan to Japan had special efforts on welcoming Paralympians in Japan, arranging accommodation for them in the relevant places, organization of trainings, avoidance of diligence faced due to quarantine. He noted that Mr. Gursel Ismayilzada, ambassador of Azerbaijan in this country who mobilized diplomatic delegation during both preparation and competitions periods, participated in competition and supported our athletes personally and tried to motivate and increase their victory wills. We felt his attention and care in each step. “Yet during the preparation for competitions warm expression spoken often about Mr. Gursel, his efforts to provide each condition for our athletes in Japan as being a part of team caught my interest for getting acquainted with him immediately”
Reminding the events taken place in presentation of first gold medal in competition, Secretary General told that he witnessed the feelings of ambassador in this case: “I want to speak about one of emotional moment. I was not able to control my feelings when our athlete Shahana won first gold medal, raising our flag under the notes of our anthem and raising the whole auditorium up, I laid my head on Mr. Gursel’s chest and cried bitterly. These were my biggest emotions coming inside my heart. These emotions emerged from great pride and joy made Mr. Gursel to cry as well.
Thus, I want to note that in such cases real patriotism, affection to the motherland, statehood, anthem, flag emerged in a blink of an eye. Our ambassador who watched the final competitions cried, clapped, and supported our athletes together with us. Mainly due to this attitude toward us enables us to feel as comfortable as native people”.
K. Mammadov, having emphasized great victory of Paralympians making great enthusiasm among all members of team, noted that they felt themselves happy as they made this joy happen to our people: “Support of Azerbaijan people the tour of our athletes in all social networks, mass-media means, rejoicing our achievements make us feel very happy. Also, I want to render my special gratitude to our diaspora activists in Japan and a special report of AZERTAC in Japan. Although it is a Coronavirus Pandemic, they are supporting us being close to us and they do their best to lighten our loads. We feel happy, as we are able to justify this confidence. We render our regards from Tokyo.
Note that Tokyo Paralympic Games will be over on September 5.
