Quadrennial Chinese National Ethnic Games Opens

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, September 07, 2003

Quadrennial Chinese National Ethnic Games Opens

The Seventh National Gamesfor Traditional Sports of Minority Nationalities raised its curtain in Yinchuan on Saturday with an entry of over 3,700 ethnic athletes from 34 delegations.

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Quadrennial Chinese National Ethnic Games Opens

The Seventh National Gamesfor Traditional Sports of Minority Nationalities raised its curtain in Yinchuan on Saturday with an entry of over 3,700 ethnic athletes from 34 delegations.

Chinese vice premier Hui Liangyu declared open the week-long games, which gathers the 55 Chinese minority nationalities which account about 8.4 percent of the nation's population of 1.3 billion.

The quadrennial ethnic sports gala features 14 medal sports including archery, wrestling, martial arts and horse racing as well as 126 demonstration events which derived from the favored ethnic folk plays.

"Stilts running race" was introduced to the games for the firsttime as a medal event. All the contenders were required to run onstilts in the special sprint event, which takes its source from Miao nationality from Hunan province, where ancient people walk onstilts to escape from the frequent floodwater.

Dragon-boat racing, shuttle-cock kicking, a diversion for ethnic people in Yunnan, and swing, a favorite leisure activity for the Korean communities distributed in Northeast China, are also title events.

The other title sports are wooden ball, a sport played in a waysimilar to that of ice hockey; one-one tug of war, a favorite sport in Tibet, Southwest China; top-whipping, an entertainment for ethnic minorities in Southwest China; firecracker-catching, anaction-packed sport nicknamed "Chinese rugby"; and pearl ball, a game in which athletes dribble and pass balls like handballers andscore goals like basketballers.

The games was inaugurated in 1953. After an abeyance of 29 years, the second games was held in Hohhot of Inner Mongolia in 1982. Since then it was regulated to be held every four years.

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