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Special: Asian Para Games

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-12-12 17:58
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Special: Asian Para Games

Special: Asian Para Games

Love is the keyword for Asian Para Games opening ceremony [Photos]

Although high-tech use and brilliant performance are often considered as the shining points, the opening ceremony of the Guangzhou 2010 Asian Para Games will highlight love.

"The opening ceremony will focus on sentiment, plot and scene design, featuring the true love and caring for the disabled as well as their spirit of unremitting self-improving," said Chen Guo, deputy secretary general of Guangzhou 2010 Asian Para Games Organizing Committee (GAPGOC), in a press conference here on Saturday.

According to Chen, who is also the vice mayor of Guangzhou, the plan for the ceremony and performance to be staged on Sunday night has been improved after five main rehearsals, with the camera rehearsal on Friday being the last one.

"The ceremony includes three parts - each with an emotional theme to convey love among family, society and disabled persons," said chief director of the opening ceremony of the Guangzhou 2010 Asian Para Games, Zhu Jianwei in a previous press briefing.

"I'm 100 percent confident of showcasing a truly stunning gala for disabled persons," added Zhu.

More than 300 mothers of disabled athletes, from both China and abroad, will join their children during the athletes' parade. And some 4,500 artists, including nearly 200 disabled ones, will perform during the ceremony, which in the director's eyes is in keeping with the ceremony's theme.

The opening ceremony is scheduled for December 12 at the Aoti Main Stadium in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province.

Special: Asian Para Games

The opening ceremony of the Asian Para Games will be staged on December 12 and the Games will conclude on December 19. It will including 19 sports, namely archery, athletics, badminton, boccia, cycling, football (5-a-side), football 7-a-side, goalball, judo, powerlifting, rowing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, tenpin bowling, volleyball (Sitting), wheelchair basketball, wheelchair fencing and wheelchair tennis, among which badminton and tenpin bowling are non-Paralympic sports.

Special: Asian Para Games

To guarantee a smooth-running of an Asian Para Games, 25,000 Games-time volunteers and 500,000 city volunteers will serve in different posts and competition venues during the Games.

 

Special: Asian Para Games

The Chinese delegation was made up of 614 members including 431 athletes and 183 officials, coaches and working staff, which is the biggest disabled athletes delegation that China has ever assembled for international multi-sport Games. The Chinese athletes will participate in all the 19 sports during the 7-day competition.

Among all the 431 Chinese athletes, their are 259 men and 189 women, with the eldest athlete aging 49 and the youngest only 15. The average age of the Chinese athletes is 23.6 and nearly 70 percent of them are under 25 years old.

 
Special: Asian Para Games
More than 4,000 accessible facilities with near 1,500 signs have been set up in the Asian Games Village. Besides, the constructions of more than 5,000-meter typhlosolis and 2,000m rampways have been finished. In the Asian Para Games Village where the athletes and officials live, the height of facilities in the telephone service zone has been designed for customers on wheelchair. The canteen for athletes lowered the counters and even the signs of clothes classification in dry cleaner shop have been adjusted for athletes to see easily on wheelchair.