Defending champion Zhang Xiaoling aims to defend her table tennis title at the upcoming Paralympics in Beijing.

Zhang, 51, the oldest among the Chinese Paralympic team of 332 athletes across all 20 sports at the Games, still feels very confident of winning a gold medal in the women's singles.

Zhang Xiaoling, five-time Paralympic table tennis champion, trains in Xi'an of northwest China's Shaaxi Province, March 25, 2008. Zhang has competed in five consecutive Paralympics and won ten gold medals in total. She will compete in her sixth Paralympics in Beijing. [Xinhua]

"To see our national flag rise and national anthem played at the Paralympic event has been the biggest pleasure in my life," said Zhang, from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the south.

Zhang suffered a tumor in her right leg in 1976. Doctors amputated the calf and gave her an artificial one. The disability, however, did not lessen her strong interest in table tennis during her childhood.

She even paid someone to make a table for her to practise. Later she recommended herself to the autonomous region's sports committee and began her athletics career.

She has won 10 golds in individual or double table tennis events at the Paralympics since 1988. And she is ready to continue her miracle at the Beijing Paralympics, which opens on Saturday.

Like Zhang, other Chinese Paralympics athletes also have high expectations in sports such as boat racing, which has been included in the Games for the first time.

The boat racing team, which has eight athletes, was founded in March 2006 in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province.

"In the past, the Paralympics was just an unreachable dream," said 22-year-old Zhang Jinhong, a singles boat racing athlete. "But now I am so glad to compete at the Beijing Paralympics and the opportunity may be the only one like it in my life."

The optimistic girl suffered infantile paralysis and has to rely on a wheelchair.

Zhang said she had to learn swimming as a boat racing athlete.

"I still could not swim after several months of learning," said the girl. "As the world boat racing championship in Germany was nearing, my coach issued an ultimatum to me saying I could not compete in a life jacket."

"I really felt pressure and then suddenly I could swim," she said. She even ranked first in the following Asia boat racing championship last year.

Liu Xiaochun, Zhang Jinhong's coach, said she had been telling the team members that miracles belonged to the courageous. "I believe we can create miracles at the Games," she said.

China topped the medals table at the 2004 Athens Paralympics with 63 golds and 141 in total.

(Xinhua News Agency September 4, 2008)