In the early years of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the sports undertakings started slowly on an extremely backward basis. In the past 60 years, along with the tremendous changes of the Chinese society, China has witnessed vigorous and all-round development in sports, and has achieved a great, eye-catching success in all aspects. China has become a universally-acknowledged big country of sports.

1. Vigorous development of sport for all

As early as in 1952, Chairman Mao Zetong wrote the inscription 'to promote the physical culture and sports and to build up the people's health'. Following that, a series of regulations were promulgated in China, including Labor and Defense System, National Physical Training Norm, System of Setting-up Exercises to Radio Music. The broad masses began to go in for sports actively. After China adopted the policy of 'reform and opening-up', the National People's Congress promulgated 'the Sports Law' in 1995, and in the same year, the State Council approved 'the National Fitness Program'. In the January of 2009, the State Council approved that August 8th of each year since 2009 would be designated as 'National Fitness Day'. In September of 2009, the State Council promulgated 'the National Fitness Regulations'. It is the first comprehensive and systematic administrative law specially designed for the development of mass sport in China, a significant mark that the national fitness undertaking in our country is now more legalized and standardized. It is an important move for accelerating a scientific development of the mass sports and for establishing a long-range mechanism for building up the people's health. It can meet the increasing demand of the broad masses in fitness training and ensure a coordinated development of physical culture and sports in our country.

In the past 60 years, we have achieved rapid progress in the development of mass sports in our country, which can be demonstrated in the following aspects:

Sport facilities have spread all over urban and rural area. At present, there are over 850,000 sports grounds of all kinds in China, 200 times or more of that of the initial stage of the founding of the People's Republic of China. The per capita area of the sports grounds is 1.03 square meters, 100 times or more of that of the initial stage of the new China.

The broad masses are now well organized in fitness training, and the level of the scientific training has been constantly raised. Now, the mass sports organizations cover all urban and rural areas in China. There are all together 176 national sports associations, provincial or municipal sports federations, and sports associations for trades and professions in China. 23 social sports guidance centers of the provincial level have been set up. There are around 210,000 urban or rural sports guidance stations or fitness training stations in our country, and 3,092 sports clubs for the youngsters. The national physique monitoring system, the physical training norm system and the social sports instructors system, etc. have been enforced in our country.

Sports for all activities are unfolded vigorously in China. We have launched 'Fitness Campaign for Hundreds of Millions of People, including Youth and Children, Peasants, Women, Workers and Staff Members, and the Old-Aged People'. The activities of Sports Going to the Countryside and of Sports Going to the Community have gone into depth. Many activities with striking features, such as the national fitness fair, demonstration of fitness activities, New Year Day climbing, and Spring Festival Fitness Show, etc. have a great appeal to the people. 'Sunlight Sports Activity for Hundreds of Millions of Students in China' has been launched in an all-round way. 'The activity of National Fitness Training Walking Abreast with the Olympics' has stricken roots into the hearts of the people. Various kinds of sports tournaments for the masses are flourishing in China, including National Peasants Games, National Ethnic Games, the National Games for the Disabled, National Middle-School Students Games, National University Students Games, and National Sports Congress, etc. The number of people who often take part in physical training makes up 28.2% of the whole population in China.

2. Remarkable Achievements in Elite Sports

For the development of the elite sports, we have adopted the strategy that the Olympic Games takes highest priority over other sports, which was formed in China step by step in the past 60 years, and we have put into practice the system with Chinese characteristics of coordinating all efforts of the whole nation.

In 1956, Chen Jingkai set a world record in the bantamweight of the clean and jerk event of weightlifting, thus becoming the first Chinese athlete who has broken a world record. In 1959, Rong Guotuan became the first world champion in the Chinese history at the 25th World Table Tennis Championships. At the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984, the Chinese athletes fulfilled a 'break-through of Zero gold medals at the Olympic Games'. At the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, the Chinese athletes obtained a remarkable success both in sports competition and in sportsmanship. With a total of 100 medals, including 51 gold medals, the Chinese sports delegation took the first place in the gold medal tally of all participating delegations. Since China's first appearance at the Winter Olympic Games in 1980, Chinese athletes fulfilled another 'break-through of Zero gold medals' at Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002. Since the 9th Asian Games held in New Delhi in 1982, China has taken the first place in the gold medal tally of all countries and regions in Asia for successive 7 editions of the Asian Games. Up to August of 2009, the Chinese athletes have won 2,310 titles of the world champion, set or broken 1,195 world records.

3. Sports industry becomes the new growth point of the national economic development

Since adopting the policy of 'Reform and Opening-up', the sports industry has been developed from the scratch. China has witnessed a rapid development of fitness service trade. Fitness facilities of various kinds have sprung up like mushrooms. The trade of sports competitions and demonstrations is brisk. National league tournaments of basketball, volleyball, table tennis, etc. have been developed to a fairly large scale. The market development of large-scale multi-sport games has obtained beneficial results. Brand sports tournaments have attracted a wide attention. China has become the largest manufacturing base of sports goods in the world. To date, 24 editions of China International Sports Goods Fair have been held. Now, it is the largest in Asia, and the third of the largest in the world.

Since the State Council approved the issuance of sports lottery in 1994, by the end of 2008, the sale of sports lottery had an accumulative total of 238.3 billion yuan, raising a public welfare fund of 77.7 billion yuan. Not only it has played an important role in the enforcement of National Fitness Program and Olympic Glory Program, but also it has made great contributions to the undertakings of social insurance and public welfare.

Looking forward to the future, we will strive to realize an all-round, coordinated and sustainable development of sports in China for achieving our goal of turning a big country of sport into a sports power. We will strive to make more contributions for building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, for construction of a socialist harmonious society, and for bringing about a great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Comments