BEIJING, May 29 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of Paralympic teams were called up to start training to prepare for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games and 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympic Games, the China Disabled Persons Federation (CDPF) announced on Friday.
A total of 388 members, including 239 athletes, from track and field, swimming, table tennis, badminton, weightlifting, wheelchair fencing, shooting, archery, cycling, judo, blind football, and sitting volleyball teams joined in the traing camps, targeting the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games.
Another 239 members, including 124 athletes, from wheelchair curling, para ice hockey, cross country skiing, Nordic combined, Alpine ski and snowboarding teams are called up for the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympics.
Zhao Sujing, Director of the CDPF Sports Department, said that 21 Paralympic training bases have been locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic since January 23, and the athletes concluded their closed-door training sessions at the end of March.
"We had zero infections (of COVID-19) during the winter training. 854 members of 31 teams are healthy," Zhao said.
"Now we are focusing on some selected athletes and teams to collect as many Paralympic tickets as possible. And because the 2020 Tokyo Games was postponed for one year, we expanded our selections to prepare for the Games," she added.
China won 107 gold medals and 239 medals in total in the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, ranking first on both gold medal and total medal tables for the 4th consecutive time. The Chinese wheelchair curling team also won the first-ever Winter Paralympic gold medal in the 2018 PyeongChang Games.
The 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games are scheduled for August 24-September 5, 2021, while the Beijing Winter Paralympic Games are slated for March 4-13 2022.
