National swimming championships for persons with disabilities open in Nantong

Athletes participate in the 2025 National Swimming Championships for Persons with Disabilities in Nantong. [Photo provided to en.nantong.gov.cn]

The 2025 National Swimming Championships for Persons with Disabilities opened in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu province, on June 16 and will run until 19.

This is an important swimming event for people with disabilities in China and acts as qualifier for the Chinese delegation to the 2025 Summer Deaflympics in Tokyo, Japan.

The competition includes categories for physical disabilities, intellectual disabilities, visual impairments, and hearing impairments, with events in men's and women's freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, individual medley, and relay races. A total of 286 athletes from 26 teams across the country are participating.

Sports allow individuals with disabilities to be a part of society and reflect society's efforts to care for them. Since 1996, these athletes from Nantong have achieved outstanding results at eight Paralympic Games, and they have stood atop the podium a combined 11 times.

Nantong is renowned in China as the "hometown of sports" and the "cradle of world champions", having nurtured 24 world champions and seven world champions with disabilities. The city's sports industry is flourishing, rapidly transitioning and upgrading towards intelligent and high-end fitness equipment and continuously extending the industrial chain.