Videos | ? Latest |
|
? Feature | ? Sports | ? Your Videos |
More and more athletes from other Asian countries are now interested in Chinese Wushu, the martial arts. And in the Guangzhou Asian Games, these athletes have put in some stellar performances.
El Rayess Elias is from Lebanon and when he's not competing, he works as a doctor. He usually spends two or three hours practicing Wushu after work. He is however all set to compete for Taiji.
The games have seen competitors come from many diverse ethnic backgrounds. Afghanistan's representative performed without music. Unlike many on show at the Asian Games - he is not a professional and failed to register a high score, but for him, competing was all that mattered.
India were represented by Manalu Moria - he's been practicing for seven years and taught himself his well defined skills.
The young practitioner from Singapore was attracted to Wushu when visited his friend's Wushu shop. He says there are more and more Wushu fans in Singapore.
"Wushu has been promoted in recent years. More and more young people who are younger than me, but roughly older than 13 years old start to learn Wushu."
Wushu became a competitive sport at the 1990 Beijing Asian Games. It was a performance event at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. And after China's Yuan Xiaochao claimed gold in the Guangzhou Asian Games, many in China will be pushing for it to become an recognised Olympic sport.