The wheelchair games and ISOD athletics meeting run from 27 October to 1 November. The Boccia meeting runs from 30 October to 7 November. Combined, the three events are expected to attract 900 athletes and 400 officials to the city.

The wheelchair and ISOD events feature 10 sports, including fencing at Cowles Stadium, wheelchair rugby at Pioneer Leisure Centre and the track and field and swimming events at QEII. Table Tennis is at the table tennis stadium onBlenheim Road, the archery is at Rawhiti Domain, powerlifting at the Riccarton Club and lawn bowls at the Woolston Club. Badminton is in the Skellerup Hall, beside Cowles Stadium.

The ISOD event is for amputee athletes. The Boccia World Cup will be contested at City Council's Westpac Centre in Addington. Boccia is a Paralympic sport developed in the main for people with cerebral palsy. The play is similar to petanque, but with soft balls similar to an oversize hakky sack.

Organising committee chairman Neil Blanchfield says entries for the wheelchair games are well up when compared to 1999, when it was last held in Christchurch. Athletes from countries in Asia are very keen to compete.

"It seems that several events in Asia for wheelchair athletes were cancelled because of the SARS outbreak so these competitors are keen to come to Christchurch as part of their build-up to the Paralympics in Athens next year," he says.

This is only the second time in its 52-year history that the World Wheelchair Games have been held away from their home base at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, near London in England. Christchurch successfully hosted the games four years ago and was asked to do so again.

China, with 114 athletes, will have the biggest team at the World Wheelchair Games, followed by Thailand, Japan and New Zealand with about 60 each. Korea, Australia and Brazil will each have about 40 in their teams.

For more information about times and places for these athletic events, call 377 1700 or look on the web at www.greatevents.co.nz Christchurch athlete Ben Lucas, right, beats Gavin Foulsham in a sprint finish at QEII in the 1990s. Lucas won gold in the marathon at the 1999 World Wheelchair Games in Christchurch. Now retired, he was New Zealand team captain at the Sydney Paralympic Games in 2000.