Drive to be powerhouse in sports championed

In 1984, few would've expected a county sports meeting held in Zhengding, Hebei province, to have played a tone-setter role, as significant as it seems now, for China's sports development on all fronts in the next four decades and beyond.

Many had even questioned whether it was necessary to host such an event in a rural county like Zhengding at the time, when the whole nation went all out pushing ahead with economic, agricultural and industrial modernization, leaving sports promotion among the least prioritized government agenda items.

As its initiator, President Xi Jinping, who then served as secretary of the Communist Party of China Zhengding county committee, carried it out anyway, hosting 10 sports disciplines on a middle school playground to gather over 1,300 participants of all ages, according to a Xinhua documentary.

The county was left abuzz and its residents were excited, while Xi got his ideas across.

People's fitness and mental health, benefited by taking part in sports exercise, would contribute to the overall well-being and solidarity of the nation, Xi's former colleagues said as they recalled his farsighted vision embodied by putting together the county games against the odds.

"Many would not understand such a decision back then," Cheng Baohuai, then county head of Zhengding, said in the documentary released in August.

"But President Xi believed it's necessary to enrich people's spiritual wellness by getting them involved in sports, which is as important as improving their livelihood."

Fast forward 41 years, Xi's ardent interests in a variety of sports and instructions on the development of competitive sports, mass fitness, the sports industry and physical education have paved the way for China to march on toward building a world sporting powerhouse by 2035, a national target set by the State Council, China's Cabinet.

The 15th National Games, which are being held jointly for the first time in Guangdong province and the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, are expected to shed new light on major sporting events' growing impact on facilitating cultural exchanges, economic growth and integrated development across regions.

It will once again serve up the larger-than-the-games boost that Xi has long envisaged as he has overseen and guided, with hands-on involvement, the hosting of a series of world-class events, such as the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympic Games, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games and the latest Asian Winter Games in Harbin in February.

"The ultimate goal of building a sporting powerhouse and a healthy China is to strengthen people's fitness," Xi said in January 2022, while inspecting preparations for the Beijing Winter Olympics. "This is also an essential part of China's effort to build a modern socialist country in all respects."

As a testament of the governmental push to facilitate grassroots sports participation, the National Games, which were launched in 1959 as a quadrennial event only for elite athletes, opened its Olympics-like program for amateur enthusiasts to sign up and compete alongside the professionals at the 2017 edition in Tianjin.

Even before its opening ceremony on Sunday, the 2025 edition has already involved over 1 million ordinary sports lovers in qualifying tournaments across 166 events on its open-access amateur program, which will host some of its final sessions simultaneously with elite competitions in the next fortnight.

The excitement is also taking over China's northern provinces with bustling scenes last week at five major ski resorts in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, indicating a busy winter season.

Resort owners are racing against time in Zhangjiakou, a co-host of Beijing 2022, to prepare for the hot business season, riding on the momentum triggered by the Winter Games, which has seen over 300 million Chinese people engaged in winter sports and related leisure activities.

The mass promotion of winter sports in China, as the biggest legacy of Beijing 2022, has paid dividends for the country's sports industry.

According to a report released last month by the sports economy department of the General Administration of Sport of China, the total market value of the nation's winter sports industry reached 970 billion yuan ($136 billion) in 2024.

It is expected to exceed 1 trillion yuan by the end of this year, staying well on course to hit the target of 1.5 trillion yuan, set by the State Council by the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period.

"Winter sports development has entered a new phase in our country," said Yang Xuedong, director of the sports economy department, while presenting the report.

"Ice and snow sports and related leisure activities have become the most trending — and the fastest-growing — events among all outdoor sports."

Data from another report unveiled on Oct 16 at the World Winter Sports Expo 2025 in Beijing showed that during the 2024-25 winter, China recorded 187.5 billion yuan in revenue from public consumption of winter sports and related leisure activities, marking a year-on-year growth of 25 percent.

Xi had reiterated that the ice and snow sports industry could be developed into "a mountain of gold and silver" in the build-up to Beijing 2022.

That vision has now been materialized on a grand scale, redefining winter sports promotion not just in China but also globally.

sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn