THE Chinese delegation to the fourth Asian Para Games, which will take place from Oct. 22 to 28 in Hangzhou, will comprise of 723 people. The delegation will include 439 athletes, 221 of whom are males and 218 females. They will compete in 397 events across all 22 sports. These athletes come from 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities of China. The oldest is 58-year-old Gao Yanming for table tennis and the youngest 13-year-old Yang Yixiao for chess. The Asian Para Games in Hangzhou consists of 22 sports and 564 events. Canoe will make its debut with 10 events this year. When the sport was introduced at the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and in Tokyo in 2021, no Asian athlete won any medal. Prachi Yadav of India finished in the fourth place in the para-canoe VL2 women’s final event and secured a berth in next Paralympics in Paris in 2024. China had four slots for para-canoe competitions in Paris 2024. Uzbekistan got two. Iran and Kazakhstan each qualified one. The sprint events of para-canoe will be contested over 200 meters in two types on boats, Kayak and Va’a. There are six classifications of the sport. China pocketed a total of 319 medals, including 172 golds, 88 silvers and 59 bronzes in the last edition of the Asian Para Games in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2018. Ten of the titles they won were in cycling sport. Wei Guoping and Li Zhangyu, who combined to secure seven golds, will compete in Hangzhou and will be joined by new world champions Liang Weicong and Wang Xiaomei. The two claimed their titles at the Para Cycling World Championships in Scotland in August. (CGTN) | 