China

China deserves 'gold medal' for Para Games success

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-12-19 10:57

GUANGZHOU - Guangzhou will bid farewell to the inaugural Asian Para Games on Sunday night and in the mind of APC President, a gold medal should be awarded to the Games, which is labelled as a benchmark for the future editions to follow.

"What can I say? These have been truly superb and memorable Games. It is a real pity that they must come to a close tomorrow night," said Dato' Zainal Abu Zarin, President of the Asian Paralympic Committee (APC).

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"China may well top the medal table by some distance, but if gold medals could be given out for staging a superb Paralympic events, then you would be even further ahead," said the president during a news briefing on Saturday.

The Guangzhou 2010 Asian Para Games is the first Asian Para Games held after the Asian Paralympic Committee came into being in 2006.

These Games attracted 2,512 athletes from 41 member countries and regions of the Asian Paralympic Family, who took part in a total of 19 sports.

Also involved in these Games were 1,286 team officials, 1,098 technical officials and 2,558 professionals from 185 media organizations from China, Asia and around the world.

"Over the past seven days, the athletes, the finest paralympic sports men and women from around Asia, participated a series of exciting competitions during which there were many outstanding achievement," said Chen Guo, deputy Secretary General of the Guangzhou Asian Para Games Organizing Committee (GAPGOC).

According to Chen, the medal table of the Games shows medallist from 31 delegations, with 5 golds still to come out on Sunday.

And as of 15:30 December 18, 20 athletes from 6 delegations had broken 17 world records a total of 21 times and 74 athletes from 13 delegations had broken 82 Asian records 98 times.

"The fighting spirit and great sportsmanship shown by these athletes has been an inspiration to us all. The support from the people of Guangzhou and the affection they have shown for the athletes has been equally inspiring. As of December 17, some 470,000 spectators had cheered athletes at Games venues around the city," said Chen.

Over 25,000 Games-time volunteers were assigned to, and carried out duties, providing a variety of services.

Between December 5 and 17 the Games-time volunteers provided services for a total of one million service hours. Moreover, some 500,000 city volunteers provided services at 600 service stations and 2,139 service stands, with a total of 5,470,000 service hours.

During the Games, the temperature in Guangzhou dropped dramatically and GAPGOC executed its contingency plan for cold weather, which included providing athletes and team officials with cotton vests, technical officials with warm clothes, volunteers with raincoats and victory ceremony protocol assistants with shawls and warmer uniforms.

Venue teams also took quick action to provide assistance during the cold weather, supplying ginger soup, hot water and blanket rental services.

"This has been a great Games, in a great city with great performances in front of great people," said Dato' Zainal Abu Zarin.

"When we arrived in Guangzhou we were promised a Games of equal splendor and I'm delighted to say we've had much, much more than what it has been promised."