HANGZHOU, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) — With the Hangzhou Asian Games drawing to a detailed, some memorable moments shall be remembered by folks from internationally for years to return.
On the closing day of the sporting gala, Xinhua opinions among the most vital moments.
DIGITAL TORCHBEARER LIGHTING THE CAULDRON
At the spectacular opening ceremony of the Games on September 23, for the primary time a digital torchbearer performed a job in igniting the cauldron. Often known as China’s tech hub, Hangzhou emphasised the “smart” theme of the Asian Games, involving hundreds of thousands in a digital torch relay.
During the opening ceremony, a digitally-animated determine, symbolizing these torchbearers, traversed the long-lasting Qiantang River, earlier than lighting the wave-shaped cauldron alongside China’s Olympic swimming champion Wang Shun.
TEARS FOR A RIVAL
China’s swimming star Zhang Yufei had each cause to smile on the Hangzhou Asiad, after clinching six gold medals. But she shed tears after 23-year-old Rikako Ikee took the bronze medal within the girls’s 50m butterfly.
Japan’s Ikee had dazzled the world by grabbing six gold medals at Jakarta 2018, earlier than a devastating leukaemia prognosis threatened to place her promising profession to an finish. But the Japanese launched into a brave battle in opposition to the sickness and made a triumphant return to the pool.
At the World Championships earlier this yr, Zhang confirmed Ikee the phrases she wrote on her palm: “Be the best of yourself.” In Hangzhou, seeing her rival-friend as soon as once more display her capability within the pool, a tearful Zhang ran over to embrace her with heartfelt congratulations.
APPLAUSE FOR LEGENDARY ATHLETE DEFYING AGE
Discussing athletes who might be described as “legendary”, Oksana Chusovitina of Uzbekistan is certainly one among them. The 48-year-old has gained eight Asian Games medals, together with two golds. As way back as 1992, she represented the Unified Team of the previous Soviet Union on the Olympics to seize the ladies’s staff gold medal.
In 2002, when Chusovitina’s son was identified with leukemia, she acquired German citizenship to compete at international occasions for a better earnings and higher medical therapy. Now that her son has recovered, Chusovitina is continuous her gymnastics journey out of affection for the game.
Although she narrowly missed out on a medal in Hangzhou by a mere 0.15 factors within the girls’s vault, she was greeted by thunderous applause from spectators. She now has her sights on the 2024 Paris Olympics. “I love gymnastics, and this profession brings me great joy,” she stated. “I’m just doing what I love, so why should I stop?”
SHARING GLORY WITH LATE COACH
“Did you see? I’ve done it,” China’s sprinter Ge Manqi murmured tearfully after claiming the ladies’s 100m title on the Hangzhou Asian Games. She devoted the medal to her late coach Liu Zhaoxu.
Ge, 25, had been coached since she was 13 by Liu, whom she deemed as “half a father” and accompanied her via ups and downs. Liu died final November on account of sickness, however Ge nonetheless remembered her promise of profitable the Asiad gold.
Another of Liu’s expenses, Lin Yuwei, was topped within the girls’s 100m hurdles and in addition paid tribute to him after profitable. The music performed on the stadium following the competitors, “Brightest star in the night sky”, might greatest describe how the pair felt: “Whenever I get lost in the darkness of night, you light for me the road ahead.”
VICTORY OF A DEFEATED TEAM
As Afghanistan’s rugby sevens staff took on their opponents within the Asiad enviornment, they appeared outmatched, watching the scoreboard soar to a frightening 52-0 in simply 16 minutes. However, for the staff, who completed twelfth within the occasion, merely stepping onto the Asiad court docket was a victory in itself.
These gamers, whereas obsessed with rugby, held various professions, from development employees to drivers, and have been based mostly in numerous nations. Without official sponsorship, they self-funded their journey to Hangzhou, arriving simply 5 days earlier than their matches.
“Afghanistan has been through a lot of hardship over the past 40, 50 years,” stated staff captain Omar Slaimankhel. “Hopefully we can keep making [Afghan people] proud.”
SPRINTERS MAKING HISTORY
On the night of Sept. 30, the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center Stadium erupted in tumultuous applause and cheers, as Chinese sprinters Xie Zhenye and Ge Manqi romped to gold within the males’s and ladies’s 100m respectively.
These victories marked the primary time ever within the Asian Games’ historical past that athletes from one nation have gained each males’s and ladies’s 100m titles.
From Lao Yi, winner of the boys’s 100m at Guangzhou 2010 and Su Bingtian, the boys’s 100m Asian document holder, to Xie and Ge, China’s progress in 100m sprints is clear lately.
“Our next goal is the Paris Olympics,” introduced the formidable Xie.