By Tom Degun

Im_Yeon_KimDecember 17 - Multiple Paralympic medalist shooter Im Yeon Kim of South Korea has won the Asian Paralympic Committee's (APC) Athletes' Representatives election after polling more than twice as many votes as the nearest candidate and will now represent the views of athletes on the APC's Executive Board for the next four years.


Every single athlete attending the inaugural Guangzhou 2010 Asian Para Games in China was invited to cast their choice from a selection of three candidates while voting took place at the spectacular Athlete's Village.

Kim claimed an overwhelming majority as the Paralympic shooting legend polled 67.3 per cent of all votes.

Mutaz Al-Juneidi of Jordan, a Beijing Paralympic Games bronze medalist in powerlifting claimed 25.6 per cent of the votes while Mohammad Reza of Iran, a four-time Paralympic Games gold medal winner in Javelin, picked up 7.1 per cent.

Kim, who is also the chairperson of the APC and Korean Paralympic Committee's (KPC) Athletes' Councils and vice president of the KPC, said in the build-up to the election that she would like to establish Athletes' Councils in each NPC and try to make every athletes representative in each NPC act as a real member of the Paralympic Movement.

Malini Rajasegaran, the APC's secretary general, said: "We would like to congratulate Im Yeon Kim on winning the election.

"She has a long history of representing the views of athletes through the Athlete's Council and I am sure she will do the same in her new role.

"We look forward to working with her as she campaigns for the expansion and development of the athlete's rights and their welfare."

The Asian Para Games, which draws to a close this Sunday [December 19], has seen hosts China dominant from the outset.

This was clearly illustrated in the swimming at the Games, which have now concluded, as China topped the medal table for the pool picking up 102 medals, 48 of which were gold.

The final day of swimming saw 17 gold medals awarded, one world record broken, four Asian records set and one swimmer pick up two gold medals.

China's Jiang Shengnan was the world record breaker in the women's 50 metres freestyle S8 setting a new time of 30.85sec to secure gold.

This beat the previous best set by Britain's Heather Frederiksen in Iceland in October 2009.

But despite Shengnan breaking the world record, the star of the final day was Chinese Taipei's Lin Shin Wei who picked up two gold medals starting with the men's 100m breaststroke SB13 in a time of 1:22.81.

His second gold medal performance on the day at the Aoti Aquatics Centre also saw him break the Asian record by recording a time of 28.80 in the men's 50m freestyle S13.

Other Asian records fell to two Chinese swimmers, Lin Ping in the women's 50m freestyle S9 in 30.83 and Zheng Yonggi in the men's 100m breaststroke SB12 in a time of 1:14.96.

Korean Lim Woogeun's time of 1:38.76 in the men's 100m breaststroke SB5 was also an Asian record.

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