| Andy Lau Meets China's Paralympic Heroes |
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| Written by mr_evolution | |
| Thursday, 04 September 2008 | |
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As the celebrity ambassador for the Beijing Paralympic Games, Andy Lau (劉德華) has recently been busy taking part in activities to raise awareness and the profile of the games, which open on Saturday. On the day after the closing ceremony of the Olympic games on 24 August, Andy visited some young Paralympic athletes at a training centre in Beijing. He visited the displays of ten different events that the sports stars were training towards. He was particularly impressed by the skills of the ladies blind gateball team, who depend on the sounds from the specially adapted ball to locate and hit it towards the goal. When he decided to give it a try for himself, he found himself being hit in the belly by the ball and raised some laughter from the audience.Andy also tried his hand at archery in a wheelchair after watching the experts, but did not get any arrows in the target. He only managed to get a couple of shots on the board after moving to half the standard distance and he expressed his admiration for the athletes for completing such a difficult task. When he joined the wheelchair tennis teams for a game, Andy did a little better and received some praise from his team mates. Disabled swimmer He Junquan (何軍權) gave a demonstration of his speed in the pool that won him four gold medals at the 2004 Athens games. He also thanked Andy for visiting and showed off his trademark smile. Andy was well received during his tour of the centre and was often stopped by athletes keen to snap a photo or get an autograph from him. He offered them all his support and words of encouragement. After the short visit of just over an hour, Andy was extremely touched and said: "The Paralympics will be just as great as the Olympics and there will be even more touching moments during the games because the disabled athletes have had to display an even stronger spirit to bring out the best in life. I hope that people will give more attention to the disabled and show their support to the Paralympians from all over the world."
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 04 September 2008 ) |
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