He is a special canoeist, but he has a wide knowledge of the sport of badminton.

Sitting on the dock of Shanghai aquatic sports center, I was talking to Chen Cheng, who was sitting on his boat tied up to the dock.

Chen Cheng, a special canoeing athlete talks with journalists during an interview at Shanghai aquatic sports center, the canoeing and sailing venue for 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games is shown in this picture taken July 25, 2007. Chen has been trained for years in the sport. [chinadainly.com.cn]

"Taufik Hidayat is my favorite shuttler, he is dominant," he said, thinking of more things that he could tell me about badminton.

"I think Taufik will win this years' badminton world championships and China will win the other four titles of the tournament," he went on to predict the result of the badminton worlds kicking off in August.

Having been trained in the sports for several years, Chen looks no difference from a normal athlete, except for that he was not so quick to understand what I said.

"It was easy," he said however, "I managed to learn canoeing within three-month's time," he said to me, scratching his face and I saw the calluses on his hand.

"As special athletes, they have to give more efforts to learn to do a sport because their limb movement was unbalanced as a result of their brain," said Su Jianming, deputy director of Qingpu Disabled People's Federation, who is charging the training affairs at the aquatic sports center.

"But nearly all of them managed after three-month training. We have similar training courses as those for normal athletes except for that they have less training hours every day," Su said.

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