The Hindu : Sport : Special medical kits for tall athletes

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Tuesday, Aug 05, 2008
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Special medical kits for tall athletes

Beijing: The organisers of the Beijing Olympic Games have made a special preparation for the world’s tallest basketball players, who will be in action during the quadrangular sporting extravaganza here.

An extra large 2.4-metre long stretcher, a spine board and a clinical bed were recently delivered by logistic service providers to the Wukesong Stadium authority, the venue for basketball and baseball.

The orange stretcher, painted with ‘Beijing 2008, Beijing First-Aid Centre’ in Chinese, has six pairs of belt loops to fix the tall patient, twice the number for an average 1.8 metre-long one.

A 2.4 metre-long clinical bed is also being kept ready at the stadium.

“We applied with the Games organisers to order an extra long bed after the Good Luck Beijing test events in April, when all the clinical beds were just 2.1 metres long and very uncomfortable for (taller) patients,” the official Xinhua news agency quoted a worker at the stadium as saying.

China’s star Yao Ming is 2.26 metres tall while the average height of basketball players is around 2 metres.

“Of course, we hope no one would get injured and all the athletes play well at the Games,” the official said. — PTI

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