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China announces largest-ever roster for Guangzhou

By Lei Lei (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-10-27 12:25

Members of the Chinese delegation for the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games listen to the national anthem during a ceremony in Beijing on Oct 26, 2010. [Photo/Xinhua]

Host hopes largest-ever delegation keeps it on top of medal table

BEIJING - Chinese sports authorities on Tuesday announced the country's largest-ever delegation for an international sporting event as China aims to defend its gold medal and medal tally titles at the coming Guangzhou Asian Games.

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"We want our athletes to show their fighting spirit and sportsmanship at the Asian Games and maintain our leading position in the rankings," Duan Shijie, chef-de-mission of the Chinese delegation and China's vice sports minister, said at the ceremony announcing the huge, 1,454-member delegation.

"As the host, we will also ensure a clean team with no drug cases," Duan said. "We consider the Asian Games an important part of our preparation for the 2012 London Olympic Games."

Since the ninth Asian Games in 1982, China has dominated the medal rankings. At the last Asiad, in Doha four years ago, China claimed 165 gold medals, 88 silver and 63 bronze.

The Asian Games is believed to be the largest-scale sporting event in the world. Besides the 28 Olympic sports, it also involves 14 non-Olympic sports, including wushu, cricket, rugby and chess.

In Guangzhou, 35 Olympic champions will lead China's 977 athletes.

The Olympic champions include men's hurdler Liu Xiang, table tennis star Wang Liqin, badminton's Lin Dan and women's trampolinist He Wenna.

With an average age of 24, the young team will take part in 447 events in 41 sports.

The oldest athlete on the team is Mi Zhongli, who will compete in men's tenpin bowling, while the youngest is Xia Shiying, 13, a female dragon boat drummer.

The Chinese coaches and athletes have vowed to defend the glory of sport's new international powerhouse.

"We will try our best to play well in Guangzhou and satisfy the local fans there," said Li Yongbo, team leader of the badminton team.

"We hope we can achieve a breakthrough there and earn more than half of the seven gold medals up for grabs in badminton."

Although they have dominated badminton courts throughout the world, the Chinese shuttlers have failed to shine at the Asiad in recent times. After claiming six gold medals out of seven at the 1990 Beijing Asian Games, when Li was a player, China has won at most four gold medals in the event.

"The competition system is different at the Asian Games from all the other events, so we have to adjust ourselves to cope with the situation there," Li said.

The men's basketball team also shoulders a heavy responsibility as host. The side's image was tarnished by a brawl with a visiting Brazilian team this month and was suspended by the sports authority. The players now want to rebuild their image.

"We learned a lot from that incident, and we know we have to control ourselves and remain calm in matches," said veteran player Wang Zhizhi, who will be taking part in his last Asian Games.

"We have already resumed training and we still have three more warm-up matches to go. We hope to play well in Guangzhou, although we face great pressure as the host team."

The 16th Asian Games will be staged from Nov 12-27 in Guangzhou, the capital city of southern China's Guangdong province. It will attract about 11,700 athletes from 45 countries and regions who will compete for 476 gold medals.