China unveils largest delegation of Olympians ever
July 25th, 2008by John
On Friday, Yao Ming attended an unveiling of the Chinese delegation to the Olympics, made up of 639 athletes. Check out all the photos here.
Here’s the story from Reuters:
China unveiled its largest delegation for any Olympic Games on Friday, naming 639 athletes behind closed doors to represent the host nation in Beijing.
The team, featuring world sprint hurdles champion Liu Xiang, includes entrants for 38 disciplines in all 28 sports at the Aug. 8-24 Games.
Among the athletes are representatives from all 31 provinces, as well as the army, police and railway sports associations. While 469 athletes will make their Olympic debuts, 37 of them took part in the Sydney Games in 2000 and 165 were in Athens four years ago.
Sports minister Liu Peng leads the 460 officials and coaches who bring the total size of the delegation to 1,099.
China won 32 gold medals in Athens, second only to the 36 claimed by the United States, and hopes are high that they can improve on that tally on home soil.
The Chinese athletes preparing for the Games have been kept away from the media and requests to attend the unveiling of the delegation were refused for all but 10 reporters from state media.