October: What to watch

Incheon, South Korea, will play host to the second Asian Para Games between 18-24 October and will feature around 4,500 athletes

After an intense season for many of the summer sports, October 2014 holds one final major event for the Asian athletes as the Asian Para Games get underway. For athletics, the marathon season gets into full-swing.

This month also brings with it the first of the winter sport events, with the Four Nations Ice Sledge Hockey Cup.

Incheon 2014 Asian Para Games

Incheon, South Korea, will play host to the second Asian Para Games between 18-24 October and will feature around 4,500 athletes from 42 countries across 23 sports.

This equates to over 2,000 more athletes, one more competing nation and four more sports then at the last Asian Para Games held in Guangzhou, China, in 2010.

The sports on show are: archery, athletics, Boccia, cycling, football 5-a-side, football 7-a-side, goalball, judo, powerlifting, rowing, sailing, shooting, sitting volleyball, swimming, table tennis, tenpin bowling, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair dance sport, wheelchair fencing, wheelchair rugby and wheelchair tennis.

They are joined by three non-Paralympic sports: badminton, lawn bowls and tenpin bowling.

On 18 October, the 49,000 seat Munhak Stadium will host the Opening Ceremony before the competition gets underway.

At the last Asian Para Games, China were the best performing country, with Japan second in the medals table, South Korea third, Iran fourth and Thailand fifth.

With all the best athletes on show, ones to particularly watch out for are Hong Kong’s wheelchair fencer Yu Chui Yong, who is a seven-time Paralympic champion, Chinese shooter Cuiping Zhang, who is a two-time Paralympic Champion, and Iranian discus thrower Javad Hardani, who also has two Paralympic titles.

Four Nations Ice Sledge Hockey Cup

The first competition of the new IPC Ice Sledge Hockey World Series gets underway with the four nation’s cup in Langenhagen, Germany.

Hosts Germany, who missed out on the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Games, will compete against Italy, the current European champions and sixth in Sochi, Czech Republic, who claimed fifth, and Sweden, who finished eighth.

For more information about the competition, visit the event website.

Bank of America Chicago Marathon

The USA’s Tatyana McFadden will be looking to retain her Chicago Marathon title as she competes on 12 October. In 2013, McFadden claimed gold in the most dramatic of finales, with just two-tenths of a second separating her from Switzerland’s Manuela Schaer.

The rivalry between South Africa’s Ernst Van Dyk, Australia’s Kurt Fearnley and USA’s Joshua George will also be one to watch out for, with Van Dyk taking victory in 2013 by just one-tenth of a second.

IPC Athletics Americas Marathon Cup

Sao Paulo, Brazil, will play host to the second Marathon Americas Cup on 19 October. In a new initiative for 2014 to boost marathon opportunities, the IPC launched the Americas cup in association with the Brazilian Paralympic Committee. The race will also be shown on Globo, Brazil’s biggest TV channel.