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Star athletes lead China to World Universiade
By Xiao Chen (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-08-01 08:43
Former national badminton player Chen Hong will lead a massive Olympian-studded Chinese team to the 24th World Universiade Games in Thailand from August 8-18.
The former All-England Open champion and Thomas Cup winner is a current student at Beijing University of Technology, and one of the Bangkok-bound squad's biggest names.
Athens Olympic diving gold medalist Hu Jia and women's 4x200m relay swimming silver medalist Yang Yu will also be part of the scholastic representation.
At the previous Games in Turkey in 2005, China finished second in the medal tally with 21 gold, 16 silver and 12 bronze medals.
"We are aiming to win at least 21 golds this time," Wang Gang, Secretary General of the team, said. "We have a number of excellent athletes and university sports have been progressing rapidly in the past years."
Just 39 athletes took part in the 2005 games, but next week a whopping 447-strong contingent with an average age of 21 will travel to Bangkok to show how far Chinese sport has come.
"We have very young athletes and also have some with international competition experiences," Wang said.
"I hope all of them will perform their best in Thailand and showcase our nation's university sports."
About 12,000 university athletes from 153 countries and regions will take part in 15 events offering a total of 236 golds.
China will compete in 13 events and 231 categories.
China's Federation of University Sports has gone to great lengths to develop different sports since 2005.
About 60 nationwide Universiade competitions and training camps have been staged annually, while coaches and referees have benefited from some 40 coaching clinics.
Universities have produced some of China's best athletes, such as Hu Kai, who became the first Chinese to win the Universiade Games 100m sprint in Turkey, and a group of teenage divers from Tsinghua University.
"We are on our way to better combine the education with sport," Wang said.
"And we will ask all the schools to initiate the campaign from elementary level.
"Only by sticking to the right system from elementary school, to high school and then to university, could we have more good athletes in the future."
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