Sport - Sports : General

China plans to field its largest-ever team

BEIJING: China has 538 athletes qualified for this summer’s Beijing Olympics and plans to field about 50 more to make up its largest-ever team, state media reported on Saturday.

Chinese athletes had met the host’s qualifying criteria in 27 of the 28 sports, with only tennis missing, deputy sports minister Cui Dalin was quoted as saying in the Beijing Daily.

In all, China expected to enter more than 580 athletes in the Games, Cui said, while cautioning against expectations that China’s depth would see it top the medal standings.

“This is the first Olympics where our athletes are competing at home and they face a whole new competition environment and a whole series of difficulties never encountered before,” Cui was quoted as saying. “The gap between the Chinese competitors’ performances in swimming and athletics and those of foreign competitors is vast. The sports China excels at are under assault, and China’s performance in other sports has been unsteady,” Cui said.

The U.S. won 36 gold and totally 102 medals to finish top at the 2004 Olympics, 20 medals more than Russia and 39 more than China. China won 32 gold medals, second to the U.S. — AP

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