Reflecting the high spirits throughout China’s Paralympic team, basketball coach Zhai Yongjun exuded confidence after pushing his charges through another sweat-drenched training session ahead of the Games.
”The Chinese delegation should be the best,” the 50-year-old coach of the men’s basketball team said amid the squeaks of the wheelchairs and bounce of the balls at Beijing’s National Indoor Stadium.
”Everyone is training extremely hard and everyone is determined to be number one.”
With China fielding a record 332 athletes across all 20 sports at the Games, which begin on Saturday, foreign athletes and coaches also appear to be in awe of the host nation’s sheer size and might.
”Those who didn’t know the Chinese national anthem before are going to know it off by heart,” said Gerard Masson, head of the French Federation of Disability Sport.
China topped the medals table at the 2004 Athens Paralympics, winning 63 golds — 28 more than Britain in second place — and 141 medals overall.
Many point to the country’s huge disabled population of 83-million — of which an estimated 10% are involved in sport — for their dominance, but the country’s strong achievements in the Paralympics are only recent.
China entered just 24 athletes when the country returned to the Olympic fold in 1984, for a return of just two Paralympic gold medals.
Their slow march to the top of Paralympic sport saw them finish outside the top 10 on the medals table in 1988 and 1992, then climb to sixth place with 34 golds at the Sydney 2000 Games.
But it was in Athens that China stunned the Paralympic world and made a mockery of their own initial modest forecasts.
China sent 200 athletes to Athens, a far bigger delegation than previous Games in a move that some experts said was part of China’s long-term plan to dazzle at the Beijing Paralympics.
”For seven years, since 2001 when they were awarded the Games, China has been focused on Beijing,” Masson said.
”There are some athletes that they did not even bring to Athens and kept for Beijing.”
He said that China’s presence on the international competition circuit had risen dramatically over the past four years.
Zhai’s basketball team is a case in point. China did not enter the basketball competition in Athens but both their men’s and women’s teams will be out competing for gold on home soil.
Rana Mitter, professor of modern Chinese politics at Oxford University, said China’s drive to top the medals table in Beijing was partly inspired by a desire to show the world its attitude towards disability had changed.
”In recent years, they have gone a great way to try and prove to the world that they are on the vanguard of issues concerning disability,” he said.
”So by showing that they are in a position to top the medals table is a victory on that question.”
Zhai’s basketball team has certainly been fighting hard on that front, training virtually non-stop since January this year, with only Sundays allowed off to recuperate.
”We are all on top form, and we will fight with all our strength,” he said. –