ATHENS, Sept. 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Following are a group of figures of the 12th Athens Paralympic Games which opened here on Friday:

    The 11-day Paralympics was covered by more than 3,000 media representatives, and supervised by some 1,000 referees and 2,000 escorts.

    More than 2,500 official guests and 15,000 volunteers out of 35,000 persons involved in the organization.

    Participating the 19-sports Games are 3,830 athletes, representing 136 countries and regions.

    The host country Greece fielded a strong team of 135 athletes and more than 300,000 tickets have been sold up to the night of the opening ceremony, the organizers' target are 400,000.

    Foreign officials invited to the opening ceremony were German President Hoerhst Keller and Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder. Enditem