Olympic swim champion Ye Shiwen leads Chinese delegation for EAG

Ye Shiwen, London Olympics 400m individual medley champion, waves at Beijing Capital International Airport before leaving for Barcelona FINA World Championships on July 22, 2013. (Photo source:Chinadaily/CFP)

Two-time Olympic champion and world record holder Ye Shiwen will compete in the 6th East Asian Games (EAG) for Oct 6 to 15 in China's Tianjin as the country's sport governing body named a star-studded squad here on Friday.

The 6th EAG features 24 sports with 254 gold medals at stake. China will send a delegation of of 516 athletes and 236 coaches and officials to compete in 247 events of all the 24 sports. Averaging 23-year-old, the Chinese athletes consists of a slew of Olympians as well as inexperienced youngsters.

The 17-year-old Ye turns out to be the biggest star in the Chinese squad. She set a new world record of 4 minutes, 28.43 second to claim title in the women's 400m individual medley event and also won the 200m individual medley with an Olympic record in London last summer.

Ye's national teammate Jiao Liuyang, winner of women's 200 meter butterfly at London Games, will also compete in Tianjin. Meanwhile, China's swimming idol Sun Yang will skip the quadrennial regional sporting extravaganza due to a lack of systematic training after his five-gold-winning feat at the National Games early this month.

The 27-year-old shuttler Zhao Yunlei, Olympic gold medalist in women's doubles and mixed doubles, will be pacing China's badminton team, while the country's sprinter Zhang Peimeng, who set a men's 100m national record of 10.00 second in Moscow worlds, will run in the men's 4X100m race.

The East Asian Games is a multi-sport event organized by the East Asian Games Association (EAGA) and held every four years since 1993 among athletes from East Asian countries and regions of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), as well as the Pacific island of Guam, which is a member of the Oceania National Olympic Committees.

China has enjoyed a convincing dominance in the regional games, staying on top of the medal tally in all the five previous editions.