KUNMING, Southwest China, May 9 (Xinhua) -- The 7th National Games for the Disabled, a major event in China's sports calendar, will be officially opened in Kunming, the capital of China's southwest Yunnan Province, here on Saturday.

    The Games slated for May 12-20, will be the biggest in scale and number of participants, including 2,251 athletes from all over the country, according to the local organizing committee on Wednesday.

    During the 9-day Games, to be hosted by both Kunming and neighboring city Yuxi, the disabled athletes of 35 delegations from 31 provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions and Hong Kong and Macao special administration regions, will compete in 552events of 15 sports.

    In 2006, five other sports, also included in the Games agenda, have been concluded with world records surpassed in the Paralympic sports of cycling and archery.

    Dong Zhi, a native of Beijing, broke the archery world record in the men's 70m ARST, and 25 other world marks were also shattered in the cycling events.

    The sports in the 7th National Games for the Disabled include archery, athletics, badminton, basketball for the deaf, cycling, judo, power lifting, shooting, swimming, table tennis, volleyball sitting, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair fencing, wheelchair rugby and wheelchair tennis.

    The Organizing Committee explained that even non-Paralympic sports are also included into the competition schedule in order to ensure equal chances for all disabled persons to take part in and show their talents in the National Games.

    According to the China Disabled Persons' Federation, there are 60 million persons with disabilities in the country. Among them, 20.57 million are persons with hearing disabilities, 11.82 million with mental retardation, 8.77 million with physical disabilities, 8.77 million with visual disabilities, 2.25 million with mental illness and 7.82 million with multi-disabilities.