Caterville, a Skolkovo resident company, won the silver medal at CYBATHLON Wheelchair Series 2019, an international competition that took place in Kawasaki Prefecture in Japan.
CYBATHLON Wheelchair is an annual competition which brings together teams from all over the world, and has developers and pilots of high-tech wheelchairs compete with each other. During the competition, participants cover a challenge track with the usual barriers wheelchair-bound individuals often find in urban settings.
Photo: Caterville
The Caterville team came to Japan in their capacity as reigning champions, having won this event twice, in 2017 and 2018 in Dusseldorf. On the way to the final, third race, the Russian team defeated two teams from Japan. The audience was packed, representative of Caterville Vitaly Anikeev told Sk.ru. This happened despite the fact that Japan was in the midst of a ten-day vacation to celebrate the enthronement of the new Japanese emperor; the Japanese audience was, of course, rooting for their teams. So winning against the local teams was psychologically quite challenging.
There was a tense moment in the final race: at the very first obstacle of the course, the Russian team made a mistake - the wheelchair touched the edge of the writing desk, which it should have passed without touching. According to the rules of the game the obstacle was considered as not passed. And while the Caterville team did finish first, the victory went to the team from Switzerland. The third place was taken by the Japanese team that lost to Caterville in the semi-finals.
Vitaly Anikeev told Sk.ru that the company planned to gain the champions title back during the next year’s CYBATHLON 2020 event in Zurich.