More than 12,000 people from 152 delegations around the world had confirmed they would attend the Shenzhen Universiade by 6 p.m. Monday, August 1st, a press conference was told Aug 2.

Pereira Dias (L), head of the Portugal delegation to take part in the Shenzhen Universiade, and Jasnic Sinisa, head of the Serbian team, answer reporters’ questions at Shenzhen Bay Checkpoint yesterday. They were the first Games delegations arriving in Shenzhen. [Photo/sz2011.org]

The participants will include more than 8,000 athletes and 4,042 team officials.

China, Russia and Japan were the three leading countries in the number of athletes, all of whom will compete in the 24 compulsory sports, according to Pan Xiaohui, one of the three Games spokespersons.

Track and field events had attracted 1,270 athletes. In contrast, only 86 athletes would compete in rhythmic gymnastics.

A total of 3,121 journalists from 323 media organizations from home and abroad had registered to cover the Games by July 27, said Pan.

The Games schedule of events had been drawn up and is available at www.sz2011.org, the trilingual official Web site of the Games organizing committee.

According the schedule, the first gold medal will be presented Aug. 13, either to the winner of the men’s 10-kilometer open water event or the women’s 120-kilometer road cycling event.

A total of 306 gold medals will be up for grabs.

“The Shenzhen Universiade will have 11 optional sports, such as golf, fencing, badminton, beach volleyball and cycling,” said Pan.

The Games organizing committee would set up 31 test centers, which are expected to conduct more than 600 tests for doping.

“We have signed an agreement with China Anti-Doping Agency in Beijing, which will send 144 test officials to the Games. All the officials had been involved in either the Beijing Olympics or the Guangzhou Asian Games,” said Zhu Yan, director of the doping test center for the Games.

Zhu said all test samples would be flown to the laboratory in Beijing each day.