Chengdu gears up for 2025 World Games

With one year to go before the 12th edition of the World Games opens, Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, is hosting a series of promotional activities, along with Beijing and Hong Kong.

The World Games, organized by the International World Games Association, is a multisport event held every four years that mainly features non-Olympic sports.

Chengdu, known for its giant pandas, won the right to host the 2025 World Games in May 2019, making it the first city on the Chinese mainland to host the event.

The slogan and mascots for the Chengdu games were unveiled at a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday. Xu Xingguo, executive vice-president and secretary-general of the Chengdu games' executive committee, said 3,749 suggested slogans had been submitted globally, along with 1,924 mascot designs.

"The slogan 'Boundless Sports, Countless Wonders' vividly conveys Chengdu's enthusiasm for sports and attitude toward life," said Xu, who is also a vice-mayor of the city.

The mascots, "Shu Bao" and "Jin Zai", are inspired by two rare animals found in Sichuan: the giant panda and the golden snub-nosed monkey.

"The design team intends to raise public awareness about these rare animals and biodiversity conservation through the mascots, aligning with the World Games' commitment to environmental protection and sustainability," Xu said.

Local cultural elements, such as the hibiscus, Chengdu's city flower, Sichuan brocade — a national intangible cultural heritage — and ancient relics unearthed from the Sanxingdui and Jinsha sites on the Chengdu Plain, have been ingeniously integrated into the mascots' designs, Xu added.

On Wednesday, a five-day carnival opened to the public at the main venue of the ongoing International Horticultural Exhibition 2024 Chengdu in the Chengdu Eastern New Area. Visitors can watch performances or even participate in sports events that will feature at the Chengdu World Games, such as breaking, wushu, roller skating, flying disc and korfball, organizers said.

Olympic champions, entrepreneurs, Sichuan opera performers, intangible cultural heritage inheritors, and museum tour guides from Chengdu arrived in Hong Kong on Tuesday on a themed train for two days of promotional and exchange activities.

Using the Chengdu World Games as a platform, institutions and enterprises from the two cities in fields including culture, sports, media, tourism and logistics signed a series of cooperation agreements on Wednesday to promote mutual cooperation and exchanges, according to the organizing committee.

Scheduled to run from Aug 7 to 17 next year, the Chengdu World Games are expected to attract more than 4,000 athletes from around the world, said Wang Yi, director of the Chengdu sports bureau and deputy secretary-general of the Chengdu games' executive committee.

He said athletes will compete in 35 sports, which will include air sports, fistball, canoeing, karate and American football.

"These sports are fashionable, trendy and highly participatory, which perfectly meets the sports needs of modern urban people," said Zhu Ming, deputy director of the Sichuan Provincial Sports Bureau.

"They also offer a wider range of options for the general public to engage in national fitness programs."

Li Yingxue contributed to this story.