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Taijiquan record set in Hainan
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A MASS open-air Taijiquan practice at a tourist resort in the island province of Hainan on Sunday morning has been recognized as having set a world record in the number of participants.
The 10,000 practitioners from 20 countries and regions joined in the practice, which highlighted the on-going World Taijiquan and Health Conference (WTHC) here, also demonstrated their support to Beijing's bid for hosting the 2008 summer Olympic Games.
A representative from the Shanghai Great World Guinness Headquarters presented a certificate to the organizers on the spot right after the practice, confirming the event as the world's largest Taijiquan performance.
Participants of the WTHC and Sunday morning's Taijiquan performance including those from Japan, South Korea, Canada and France then put down their signatures on a giant banner to support Beijing's Olympic bid.
Beijing and four other cities -- Paris, Osaka, Toronto and Istanbul -- are the candidate cities for the 2008 Olympic Games.
A Taijiquan practice performed by a field of similar scale had been staged at central Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1998, but the organizers failed to apply to have the event listed in the Guinness book of world records.
"It's just astonishing," said Patrick van Campenhout from Belgium, an European executive member of the International Wushu Federation (IWF).
"This is surely one of the world's biggest events of martial arts I'd ever seen in my career. It is also the most beautiful and biggest Taijiquan demonstration," he said. "I should say that for me, only China can organize such an event.
"I think Taijiquan has a very bright future and it also helps those people who wish to go even further both in physiques and philosophy," he added.(Xinhua)
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