"I will compete in the 100- and 200-meter races at the game," Kim Vanna told Xinhua.

"I feel so great that I will join the Paralympic Games in Beijing because it is the first time for me to join a world class event like this," he said.

"I am a disabled person but my mind is not disabled. In the future I want to become a coach of disabled runners," Kim Vanna added.

Kim Vanna was selected by the committee on the basis of the silver medal that he had won at the ASEAN Para Games in Thailand earlier this year, said Yi Veasna, secretary general of the National Paralympic Committee of Cambodia.

"He is our national athlete selection for 2008. He has the most recent medal from the ASEAN Games," he said, adding that the government had recently awarded him US 4,000  dollars for his silver medal.

Kim Vanna has so far won 18 medals at international competitions, three golds, 10 silvers and five bronzes, and the Beijing trip will be the first Paralympics.