BEIJING // Having topped the medals table at last month's Olympic Games, China delivered an even more emphatic triumph for the hosts' disabled athletes at the Paralympics. China, already the Paralympic superpower after winning most golds and most medals in Athens in 2004, blew away the other nations as hosts in Beijing, winning 89 golds and 211 medals - double the totals of second-placed Britain on both counts.
Of course China always has the weight of numbers, there are 83 million registered disabled people in the world's most populous country, but delivering elite athletes from that pool is another matter. China's Disabled Persons' Federation (CDPF) used the model of the ruthlessly efficient state sports system, which is organised on a pyramid of city-provincial-national team, to select the 322 athletes who excelled at the Games.
"It is also an embodiment of our national system," said Jia Yong, an official with the Chinese Paralympic delegation. "We selected our athletes from provincial teams via national games and trials, while the provincial teams scout their local athletes." Chaired by Deng Pufang, the wheelchair-bound son of the late reformist leader Deng Xiaoping, the CDPF has also had the financial backing to form its winning team.
Since winning the right to host the Paralympics in 2001, China has been investing 100 million yuan (Dh51.4m) each year in the sports system for the disabled through lottery funds. "The CDPF has had hundreds of thousand of workers in all levels, from central government to every community and village," said Ping Yali, who won China's first Paralympic gold in 1984. The world's biggest sports facility built for Paralympians was established in suburban Beijing last year at a cost of US$100 million and 18 other training bases have been launched throughout the country.
Yuan Yanping, a judo champion in Beijing, was discovered during a morale-boosting visit to her university by district CDPF officials after she lost her sight in 2004. "I joined the national judo team for the blind in 2005 and have been preparing for the 2008 Paralympics since then," said the 32-year-old. A common concern with able-bodied athletes is what happens after they have won glory for their country and the same is true for the Paralympians.
Wang Xinxian, China's chef de mission at the Paralympics, said every medallist would be rewarded. "The award is a gesture of our concern, a motivation for people with a disability who take part in sport and a help with their living," he said. For someone like Xiao Cuijuan, a women's powerlifting gold medallist, the reward will make a huge difference to her poor rural family in Jiangxi, which has supported her since she was disabled by polio as an infant.
Unlike the 23,000 elite athletes in the able-bodied system, who are effectively employees of the Sports Ministry, China's Paralympians are all amateurs with no financial support from the government outside training camps. "When they join our training teams, it does not mean they are employed to be professionals," said Mr Jia. "They are government workers, peasants, businessmen, or unemployed persons et cetera.
"Our first goal is to improve the mass participation of sports among people with disability and they act as role models for that." *Reuters
