VOA News | Monday, September 25, 2023 
Crowd Roars as Xi Opens Hangzhou Asian Games

HANGZHOU, CHINA — Chinese President Xi Jinping opened the COVID-19-delayed 19th Asian Games on Saturday in the city of Hangzhou during a shiny and at times raucous opening ceremony on Saturday. Spectators in the city’s 80,000-capacity stadium let out a huge roar as Xi was introduced and walked in to sit with visiting dignitaries, including International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Games, delayed a year because of China’s measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, will be the country’s biggest sporting event in over a decade in several metrics, with around 12,000 athletes from 45 nations competing in 40 sports. After the Chinese flag was brought out, the first team out was Afghanistan, whose female athletes, based abroad due to sport for women being banned by the Taliban, walked together with their male counterparts. Their flag-bearers carried…Read more