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The 4th Asian Para Games have marked its homecoming to China just 13 years after Guangzhou staged the event's inaugural edition in 2010, and this time, Hangzhou - the capital of China's Zhejiang Province - played its role as main hosts.
This edition of the Para Asiad was initially scheduled to be held in 2022, but fears over a new variant of COVID-19 - of which China was an epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic - had prompted to push it back by one year and then timetabling it to take place between 22 to 28 October 2023.
The games have attracted over 3,000 para-athletes from across the continent, and this edition features 566 medal events in 23 sports and disciplines. That includes debuting sports such as para taekwondo, paracanoe and the ancient Chinese board game go (integrated with chess as part of the board games events), and especially blind football and rowing, both of which are making their respective returns to the Asian Para Games programme after being absent from the 2018 Games in Jakarta due to lack of facilities.
