There
have been injuries in sporting arena – the story of Schumacher lying in coma
and Phil Hughes passing away are too well known. Away, Gymnastics is a sport involving
performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility,
coordination, balance, grace and passion for the sport. Internationally, all of
the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de
Gymnastique (FIG) with each country having its own national governing body
affiliated to FIG. Competitive Artistic gymnastics, typically involves the
women's events of uneven parallel bars, balance beam, floor exercise, and
vault. Men's events include floor exercise, pommel horse, still rings, vault,
parallel bars, and high bar. Gymnastics evolved from exercises used by the
ancient Greeks, that included skills for mounting and dismounting a horse, and
from circus performance skills.
The Goodwill Games
was an international sports competition, created by Ted Turner in reaction to
the political troubles surrounding the Olympic Games of the 1980s. In 1979, the
invasion of Afghanistan caused the United States and other Western countries to
boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, an act reciprocated when the Soviet
and other Eastern Bloc countries (with the exception of Romania) boycotted the
1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. 1998 Goodwill Games was the fourth edition
of the international sports competition.
This
is not the story of a rival association staging games but that of a gymnast who
suffered while performing.
Sang
Lan (1981) is a former Chinese gymnast, television personality and student.
Sang achieved excellence in gymnastics at a young age, winning the all-around
and every single event final at the 1991 Zhejiang Province Championships. By
1995 she was competing nationally. Sang was one of China's strongest vaulters,
placing second on the event at the 1995 Chinese Nationals and gaining
championship in 1997. While she never represented China at the Olympics or
World Gymnastics Championships, she did compete at the 1996 and 1997 American
Cup meets and was selected for the 1998 Goodwill Games team.
In New York at the
Goodwill Games, during warmups for the vault event final, Sang fell while she
was performing a timer (a simple vault, used by the athlete to familiarize
herself with the apparatus and warm up). She could not raise herself from the
mat and was taken to the hospital. Tests indicated that she had fractured and
dislocated her C6 and C7 vertebrae and injured her spinal cord. The result of
the injury was paralysis from the mid-chest down. Sang remained in New York
City for almost a year, receiving rehabilitation at Mount Sinai Hospital. Many
celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Celine Dion and Christopher Reeve
visited and offered their support; she was also invited to participate in the
New Year's Eve festivities in Times Square as an honored guest.
12 years after her
fall, however, Sang revealed that her fall was not just an unfortunate
accident, but due to disturbance from a coach of another team, who walked into
the vault area to remove a mattress after her push-off. Sang said she mentioned
it when she was sent to hospital, but Chinese officials apparently dismissed
her accusation, saying she had brain damage. Since returning to China, Sang became a celebrity and an advocate for the disabled.
Sang also hosted her own show, Sang Lan
Olympics 2008 on STAR TV, a Mandarin-language television channel. She was an
ambassador for Beijing's successful 2008 Olympics bid and was selected as an
Olympic relay torchbearer.
A few months back,
news reports suggested that the champion gymnast who was paralyzed in an
accident at the 1998 Goodwill Games has reached a deal with insurance companies
to cover her medical care and rehabilitation in China, as well as provide
financial help, her lawyer said, who is quoted as saying that details would not
be divulged. Still, he said it will provide up to $10 million in cash and
health care over the lifetime of the 30-year-old gymnast, Sang Lan.
A lawsuit was filed
in U.S. District Court in Manhattan seeking $1.8 billion on Lan’s behalf. She
named as defendants AOL Time Warner Inc., USA Gymnastics, TIG Insurance Co.,
TIG Specialty Insurance Solutions, Riverstone Claims Management LLC and various
other defendants. It is reported that
USA Gymnastics was never served in the lawsuit and was being dismissed from the
suit. This matter was resolved through the insurance carriers. According to the lawsuit, Sang was left
paralyzed from the mid-chest down after she fractured and dislocated two
vertebrae and injured her spinal cord when someone walked into the vault area
after she pushed off from the vault and removed a mat before she landed. The
settlement will provide money to cover Lan’s health care in China. Previously,
her health care was paid for only in the United States. The lawsuit proceeds
against several Chinese defendants.
A good
relief for the performer who was dismayed by some cynics that the accident was
due to her lack of skill ~ and after more than a decade of suffering, comes the
much needed relief. In April 2014, Sang Lan gave birth to a baby
boy. The 33-year-old new mother is the first patient who suffered a high
cervical spinal cord transection to successfully deliver a baby by C-section in
China, it was reported.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
28th Nov.
2014
With inputs taken
from www.chinadaily.com.cn
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