Asian Games Wrap Up Their First Week in Hangzhou, China

 The crowd cheers with Chinese flags during the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. (AP)
The crowd cheers with Chinese flags during the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. (AP)
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Asian Games Wrap Up Their First Week in Hangzhou, China

 The crowd cheers with Chinese flags during the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. (AP)
The crowd cheers with Chinese flags during the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. (AP)

The two-week Asian Games featuring 12,500 participants from 45 nations and territories have completed their first week in China.

The opening ceremony in the packed 80,000-seat Olympic Sports Center Stadium in Hangzhou featured electronic flash, 3D animations and a virtual torchbearer.

Many of the 481 events offer a chance for smaller delegations to win medals, which is often impossible at the Olympics. The regional fare includes dragon boat racing, sepaktakraw — sometimes called “kick volleyball” — wushu, a Chinese martial art, and kabaddi, a popular contact sport on the Indian subcontinent.

Add to this a long list of what organizers call “mind sports” from bridge to chess to xiangqi (Chinese chess) to esports like League of Legends.

South Korea’s League of Legends team won not only the gold medal but also an exemption from military service at home. In South Korea, the law exempts athletes, classical and traditional musicians, and ballet and other dancers from military service if they have obtained top prizes in certain competitions and are assessed to have enhanced national prestige.

The youngest member of the nearly 900-strong delegation from China, a 13-year-old skateboarder, is going home with a gold medal in women’s street skateboarding. Cui Chenxi is already planning for next year’s Paris Olympics.

Nine sports at the Asian Games offer qualification spots for the Olympics — archery, artistic swimming, boxing, breaking, hockey, modern pentathlon, sailing, tennis, and water polo.



‘Flooding Rains’ Threaten to Dampen Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony

Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)
Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)
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‘Flooding Rains’ Threaten to Dampen Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony

Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)
Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)

The Paris Olympics look likely to get off to a soggy start.

Meteo-France, the French weather service, is predicting “flooding rains” Friday evening when the opening ceremony is set to unroll along the Seine River. But the show is set to go on as planned, starting at 1:30 p.m. EDT/7:30 p.m. CEST and should last more than three hours.

Already in the late afternoon, skies were gray with intermittent drizzle. There was a silver lining, though, with temperatures expected to stay relatively warm throughout the evening.

Instead of a traditional march into a stadium, about 6,800 athletes will parade on more than 90 boats on the Seine River for 6 kilometers (3.7 miles). Though 10,700 athletes are expected to compete at these Olympics, hundreds of soccer players are based outside Paris, surfers are in Tahiti and many have yet to arrive for their events in the second week, organizers said Thursday.

Hundreds of thousands of people, including 320,000 paying and invited ticket-holders, are expected to line the Seine’s banks as athletes are paraded along the river on boats.