At Asian Games, China is the Team to Beat

Forty-five national delegations and about 10,000 athletes are scheduled to take part in the 17th Asian Games that began in Incheon, South Korea, on Friday.

But there can be little doubt about which nation will have the most bright and shiny keepsakes when the continent's largest sports festival concludes two weeks later, on Oct. 4.

China has finished atop the gold medal count in every edition of the Asian Games since 1982. With home advantage at the last edition, in 2010 in Guangzhou, China won nearly three times as many golds and nearly twice as many total medals as its nearest competitor, South Korea. (Asian Games: Jin-Jong-Oh Leads South Korea's Bid to Topple China)

Not all of China's stars are coming out for these games, though. Li Na, the most successful Asian tennis player in history, is recovering from injury and reportedly mulling retirement. Neither will Peng Shuai, who just reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open. India, however, will have its biggest women's tennis star, Sania Mirza, a six-time Asian Games medalist. (Big Cheers for North Korea at Asian Games Opening Ceremony)

Li Xiaoxia, the double Olympic champion in women's table tennis, will be resting for next month's World Cup. And while Zou Kai, the most decorated Chinese Olympic gymnast with his six medals, is expected to compete in Incheon, several of the nation's other leading gymnasts will not, with the world championships looming in Nanning, China, early next month.

The hurdler Liu Xiang, still the most prominent Chinese track and field athlete, is not expected to return to competition until next year. He has not raced since his latest Achilles tendon injury, incurred at the 2012 London Olympics. (Blaze of Music and Colour Kicks Off Incheon Asian Games)

But Team China, with its depth and breadth of well-funded talent across a wide range of sports, will have more than enough to climb podium after podium. And there will be plenty of podiums to climb in Incheon, with 439 events in 36 sports and disciplines ranging from Olympic staples like aquatics and athletics to regional diversions like sepaktakraw, soft tennis and wushu.

One of China's main attractions will be Lin Dan, the double Olympic champion and one of the best badminton players in history. He is expected to face tough competition from Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei and his Chinese teammate Chen Long, who won the world title in Copenhagen last month.

China also has the women's track cyclist Guo Shuang, the divers Wu Minxia and Chen Ruolin and the men's table tennis star Zhang Jike, who holds the world and Olympic singles titles and is the most prominent member of a typically powerful Chinese team.

Then, perhaps above all, there is Sun Yang, the world's greatest men's distance swimmer, who has had a tumultuous stretch since winning four medals in the pool in London, including gold in the 400-meter and 1500-meter freestyle.

He was suspended from commercial activities last year after breaching team rules and then was detained by the police for a week after he crashed a Porsche that he was driving without a license. The Chinese swimming authorities suspended him from training and competition in November.

He missed the Pan Pacific Championships last month, so the Asian Games represent his return to top-flight international competition - and he should have some in the 200 and 400 free in the familiar form of Park Tae-hwan, his South Korean rival.

They were the first men's swimmers from their nations to win Olympic gold medals in a sport that is rightfully considered truly global and has long been dominated by Americans, Australians and Europeans. It is a good measure of Park's celebrity in South Korea that he and Sun will be racing in the Munhak Park Tae-hwan Aquatics Center.

But the broader race could be between South Korea and Japan for second place in the medal count. South Korea has home advantage, although it will not necessarily have consistently big home crowds if preliminary ticket sales are any indication. Japan, meanwhile, is already building up to stage the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Kohei Uchimura, the men's Olympic all-around champion, is expected to lead Japan's gymnastics team. Kosuke Hagino, fresh off sweeping the individual medley races at the Pan-Pacific Championships and beating the U.S. star Michael Phelps, will be one of the leaders of a strong Japanese swimming team.

South Korean athletes and officials have talked about the importance of the Asian Games for lifting national morale after a difficult year that was marked by the Sewol disaster, in which a ferry capsized en route from Incheon to Jeju with 476 passengers aboard, many of them schoolchildren. Nearly 300 people died.

"We've had so many accidents and incidents this year which were heartbreaking to many of us," Park Soon-ho, head of the South Korean delegation to the games, said in comments reported by Reuters. "I hope that our athletes can help console those in pain through their efforts and good results."

Malaysian athletes are mindful of their own nation's troubles this year, with the loss of two Malaysia Airlines jets. One disappeared in March, apparently crashing, perhaps in the southern Indian Ocean. Another was shot down over Ukraine in July.

"Hopefully these Asian Games can bring a bit of light to the families that have been through the toughest of times," said Nicol David, the Malaysian squash star. "Hopefully we can do the nation proud in some way."

Syria has sent a small delegation of athletes despite the civil war there. So has Iraq, in the midst of its own ongoing tumult.

Saudi Arabia has sent nearly 200 male athletes but no women after sending female athletes to the 2012 Summer Olympics for the first time in the face of considerable pressure from the International Olympic Committee and the organization Human Rights Watch. Saudi sports officials have said they intend to send women to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, when they said their female athletes will be better prepared to be truly competitive.

For now, the Saudis are expected to have the only delegation without female representation at what has become one of the world's largest multisport events.

The first Asian Games were staged in 1951 in New Delhi, with 11 nations and 489 athletes competing in six sports and 57 events.

The growth of the games has mirrored the rise of Asia as a political, economic and sporting force, and the games have also been an engine for the growth of sports in the region, with governments increasing funding for their athletes in the quest for medals in sports with limited commercial viability.

"We believe the Asian Games will continue to develop by virtue of the medal chase and the government investment," said Andrew Georgiou, chief executive of World Sport Group, a marketing agency based in the Singapore.

For the moment, however, there is no host for the next Asian Games, which have been scheduled for 2019 in an attempt to put the competition on an odd-year schedule.

Hanoi withdrew as host earlier this year, citing economic concerns, and while Indonesia is widely expected to be named as the replacement, it has not yet been confirmed officially and its representatives may push for a 2018 date because of presidential elections expected in 2019.

Whenever and wherever the 18th edition happens, expect China to remain the team to beat.

© 2014, The New York Times News Service