CHINA: PARALYMPIC DOMINANCE

The People’s Republic of China became the dominant archery nation at these Games, taking over from Great Britain at the top of the Paralympic medal table in archery. China featured on seven of the nine archery podiums in Tokyo, taking four golds in total, and Chen Minyi set a new Paralympic record with her 142-point W1 final.

The country has put immense resources into para-sport over the past two decades and there are more than 30 national sports training camps throughout the country, where some estimates put the total disabled population as up to 85 million. The China Disability Sports Training Centre on the outskirts of Beijing, opened in 2007, provides state-of-the-art facilities for disabled athletes, including two dedicated archery fields, and is the largest facility of its kind in the world. (The World Para Archery Championships were held there in 2017.)

Perhaps the only surprise was first seed and recurve women’s favourite Wu Chunyan not taking home a gold; she ended up with bronze in both individual and mixed team after some off-brand matchplay in both semi-finals. Zhou Jiamin, double compound gold medallist in Rio, also left the competition early, but it was abundantly clear that there was plenty of other talent in their squad.

China’s athletes led the Tokyo event overall by a huge margin, taking home some 207 medals – although that was actually a small drop in their total from Rio – and have now topped the Paralympic medal table every year since 2004. That streak is absolutely certain to continue.