The 5th Asian Para Games opens in Nagoya, Japan

China News Service, Nagoya, October 18 (Reporter Zhu Chenxi) The 5th Asian Para Games opened on the 18th in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.

This Asian Paralympic Games has a total of 18 major sports including track and field, swimming, table tennis, wheelchair fencing, blind football, wheelchair basketball, and sitting volleyball, and about 500 minor sports. Nearly 3,000 athletes from 45 countries and regions participated.

At the opening ceremony that night, the seventh Chinese sports delegation took the stage, with female disabled taekwondo athlete Li Yujie and male disabled weightlifter Yan Panpan serving as flag bearers. The Chinese sports delegation sent 312 athletes to participate in 335 events in 17 major events. All athletes are amateurs and come from different groups such as workers, students, staff, and freelancers. This is the fifth time that the Chinese sports delegation has participated in the Asian Para Games, and it is also the largest number of athletes participating in overseas Asian Para Games.

Hideaki Omura, chairman of the Aichi Nagoya Asian Games and Asian Paralympic Games Organizing Committee, and Majid Rashid, chairman of the Asian Paralympic Committee, delivered speeches at the opening ceremony.

The predecessor of the Asian Para Games was the Far Southern Games, which was held 9 times from 1975 to 2006. In 2006, relevant organizations merged to form the Asian Paralympic Committee, and the event was officially renamed the Asian Paralympic Games. Since the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, the Asian Para Games has been held in the same city as the Asian Games in the same year.

This Asian Paralympic Games will last until the 24th. Before the opening ceremony, wheelchair basketball, blind football, table tennis and other events have already started competition.