The opening of the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games, a “sporting celebration of 4.7 billion Asians,” is just over a month away.
The 19th edition of the Asian Games will see nearly 12,500 athletes from 45 countries under the umbrella of the Asian Olympic Council (OCA) put their skills to the test.
Athletes will compete for a total of 483 gold medals in 40 official sports and 61 individual events from September 23 to October 8, following the Opening Ceremony.
South Korea is sending a record-breaking 1,180 athletes and coaches.
This is a slight increase from the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games (1,444 athletes, including 38 North-South unified teams) and the 2014 Incheon Games (1,68 athletes) held in Anbang.
The Hangzhou Asian Games were scheduled to take place in 2022, but were postponed by one year due to the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and each sporting organization has rebuilt its squad according to its own criteria to prepare for the Games.
South Korea will aim to reclaim second place. The team finished second to China five times in a row, from Bangkok 1998 to Busan 2002, Doha 2006, Guangzhou 2010, and Incheon 2014, before slipping to third place at Jakarta-Palembang 2018, where they were surpassed by Japan.
At the time, South Korea had won just 49 gold medals. It was a whopping 26 behind Japan (75).
It was the first time a team had won fewer than 50 gold medals at an Asian Games since the 1982 New Delhi Games (28), when a total of 199 gold medals were up for grabs.
After a five-year hiatus, the Korean team will be looking to redeem itself at the Games.
They will be looking to win multiple gold medals in track and field (Woo Sang-hyuk) and swimming (Hwang Sun-woo), as well as in archery, taekwondo, judo, and fencing.
The baseball and soccer teams will look to build on their success at the last Games.
While bowling, which won two gold medals at the last Games, has been dropped from the program, go has been reinstated after 13 years.
Shin Shin-seo, Park Jung-hwan, and Choi Jeong-9 will lead the way and hope to sweep the three gold medals.
A number of medals are also expected in esports, which has been included for the first time.
A total of seven gold medals are up for grabs in esports, with South Korea competing in four events: League of Legends, FIFA Online 4, Street Fighter V, and Battlegrounds Mobile.
Breaking, an official sport at the Paris 2024 Games, is also expected to attract younger fans.
The Games mark North Korea’s return to international sports competition.
North Korea has closed its borders and boycotted sporting events since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020.
The country was suspended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for unilaterally boycotting the Tokyo 2020 Games, but the ban has now been lifted and the country is free to compete in Hangzhou.
North Korea has already applied to participate in the Games in friendly China as a comeback. It will look to win medals in women’s wrestling and weightlifting, where it has been strong.
At the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games, the two Koreas entered together under the Korean Peninsula flag and then teamed up to win gold in the women’s 500-meter canoe event.
But they will face stiff competition this time around. North Korea finished 10th at the last Games with 12 gold medals.
High-profile athletes from Russia and Belarus will not be competing.
Initially, the two nations had hoped to compete as observers at the Hangzhou Asian Games in order to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, but the lack of movement a month before the start of the Games has led to speculation.
This will be China’s third time hosting the Asian Games after Beijing 1990 and Guangzhou 2010.
It will be hosted by Hangzhou, China, and spread across six cities in Zhejiang province, including Ningbo, Wenzhou, Huzhou, Xiaoxing, and Jinhua.
카지노사이트 The Games’ slogan is “Shimshimshangfeng, @未來,” a Chinese phrase that means “When hearts connect, the future opens.
The mascots are three robots named Chongchong (琮琮), Lianlian (蓮蓮), and Tianchuan (宸宸), representing Hangzhou’s three World Heritage Sites.