China to send more than 400 athletes to Tokyo Olympics

The team includes 298 female athletes and 133 male competitors. They range in age from 14-year-old female diver Quan Hongchan to 52-year-old male equestrian rider Li Zhenqiang

Olympics men's singles gold medallist Chen Long of China will be the only defending champion in badminton.

China will send 431 athletes to the Tokyo Games as part of a 777-member delegation, its largest at an Olympics outside China, the official Xinhua News Agency said on Wednesday.

The team includes 298 female athletes, more than twice the 133 male competitors. They range in age from 14-year-old female diver Quan Hongchan to 52-year-old male equestrian rider Li Zhenqiang, Xinhua said.

“This is the largest ever Olympic delegation China has sent overseas,” Gao Zhidan, deputy director of China’s State General Administration of Sport, was quoted as saying.

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The delegation to the Beijing Games in 2008 was larger, with 1,099 people including 639 athletes.

China expects to win gold medals in table tennis, badminton, gymnastics, weightlifting, shooting and diving, Xinhua said.

The Tokyo Olympics, delayed by one year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, will begin in nine days on July 23.