China to send more than 400 athletes to Tokyo Olympics
- The 777-member delegation is the biggest to go to an overseas Games
- Nearly all have been vaccinated against Covid-19, according to official
The team includes 431 athletes who will compete in 225 events across 30 sporting disciplines.
Some 298 female athletes qualified for Tokyo, more than double the 133 male competitors.
State news agency Xinhua also highlighted the diversity of the Chinese team, with 33 athletes from the Manchu, Mongol, Hui and other ethnic minorities.
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China’s Tokyo Olympics delegation will be nation’s biggest yet for an international sporting event
He said the delegation included 30 foreign coaches from 19 countries such as the United States, Germany, Britain and France across 17 sporting disciplines.
The country had its biggest delegation of 1,099 people on home soil at the Beijing Games in 2008, where 639 athletes competed.
In Tokyo, China expects to win gold medals in sports such as table tennis, badminton, gymnastics, weightlifting, shooting and diving, according to Xinhua.
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The team includes 138 former Olympians, and 19 are defending champions from the Rio Games in 2016, such as Ma Long in table tennis and Chen Long in badminton.
The most experienced – women’s shot-putter Gong Lijiao, women’s taekwondo athlete Wu Jingyu, men’s shooter Pang Wei and men’s trampolinist Dong Dong – will all be taking part in their fourth Olympics.
At 52, the oldest athlete on the team is male equestrian rider Li Zhenqiang, while the youngest is 14-year-old female diver Quan Hongchan.
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Several big names are missing, including Lin Dan, the badminton icon who announced his retirement last summer, and Sun Yang, the triple champion swimmer who was banned for four years and three months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport last month.
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International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said he expected more than 80 per cent of the athletes to be vaccinated by the opening of the Games.
In a meeting with Tokyo Olympic Committee chairwoman Seiko Hashimoto on Monday, China’s ambassador to Japan Kong Xuanyou said Beijing hoped the safety of Chinese athletes would be ensured.
Beijing will host the Winter Olympics in February 2022 and its organisers are also closely watching Tokyo’s preparations during the pandemic.
