January 12th
Jingzhou Daily published the article “Thousand-year-old ancient city competes for romance”
——A review of sports development in Jingzhou’s “14th Five-Year Plan” titled
Focus on the development of sports in Jingzhou
The full text is as follows
In 2025, Jingzhou’s sports industry will see frequent good news and fruitful results.
At the National Commendation Conference for Advanced Units and Individuals in Mass Sports, 8 units and 6 individuals in Jingzhou were rated as national advanced.
At the 15th National Games, 45 Jingzhou athletes sang triumphant songs on multiple fronts – badminton star Wang Zhiyi helped the Hubei team regain the women’s singles crown after 60 years; football players Gao Gao and Hu Guiying helped the Hubei U20 team win a historic gold medal, and 8 city sports schools Two students represented the Hubei men’s football U16 team and won the silver medal; Zhu Xuanchen and Pan Yinlong broke the best record in the National Games in the men’s badminton event; Li He galloped like the wind on the relay track, helping the team win 1 gold and 1 bronze; Xiang Xinyi and her teammates won the silver medal in the three-person basketball women’s team. The mass sports front also performed well, with goalball, Tai Chi, badminton and other sports achieving great results… With the results of 3 golds, 4 silvers and 1 bronze in the bag, Jingzhou’s number of gold medals in competitive sports has jumped to third in the province.
These achievements are a wonderful microcosm of the leapfrog development of Jingzhou’s sports industry during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period. From the craze of national fitness, to the success of the National Games, to the rise of the sports industry cluster – Jingzhou, this hot land that gave birth to the brilliant Chu culture, is using the language of sports to tell the story of a city’s renewal and transcendence.
National fitness: from “corner areas” to “life circles”, making health within reach
Every evening, there are endless running figures on the social football field next to the Jingzhou Olympic Sports Center; the idle land in Cha’an Temple Community in Yingcheng Town, Jingzhou District has been “transformed” into a sports corner and has become a gathering place for people to sweat; the first sports and fitness center in Jinan Town, Jinan Cultural Tourism District has been launched, with basketball courts, football fields, badminton courts, and intelligent fitness equipment. It has realized the transformation of grassroots national fitness facilities from “available” to “excellent”.
In recent years, from cities to villages, from scenic spots to neighborhoods, sports venues and facilities are dotted all over the place, and greenways are winding through. The city’s “golden corner and silver edge” have been cleverly activated, fitness venues have “bloomed everywhere”, national fitness activities have continued all year round, and various sports events have been “seamlessly connected”. The proportion of people in the city who regularly participate in exercise reaches 47.1%, and the passing rate of national physical fitness monitoring reaches 93.31%, which is higher than the provincial average. Behind the data is the sense of happiness and gain that sports bring to people, which further proves the city’s high-level coordination and systematic promotion of sports development.
Since the “14th Five-Year Plan”, our city has compiled and issued a series of policy documents such as “Jingzhou City’s Implementation Plan on Accelerating the Construction of a Strong Sports City in the New Era”, “Jingzhou City’s National Fitness Plan Implementation Plan”, and “Jingzhou City’s Sports Park Construction Implementation Plan” to systematically promote the construction of a public sports service system. The city has applied for and implemented a total of 84 shortcomings improvement projects within the central budget and provincial-level national fitness projects, with a total investment of 115.6 million yuan. It has successively built 25 standard and non-standard social football fields in the central city, and completed the construction of major projects such as Phoenix Sports Park and Linjiangxian Sports Park. Up to now, the city has built 16 sports parks, equipped with nearly 1,500 sets of fitness paths, and implemented more than 300 national fitness projects. The per capita sports venue area has reached 3.38 square meters, ranking first in the province. The “15-minute fitness circle” has turned from a vision into a reality.
Once the venue is built, the activities will become even more popular. In the park in the early morning, Tai Chi enthusiasts were walking freely, and badminton players could be seen everywhere playing against each other. In the square in the evening, the aerobics team was in uniform, and the sounds of hitting balls and cheers could be heard one after another in the indoor arena. The Jingzhou Marathon attracts 20,000 runners through the thousand-year-old city. Hundreds of teams compete in the Chinese Dragon Boat Open to recreate the heroic spirit of the Chu people. The National Historical and Cultural Cities Badminton Invitational Tournament demonstrates the profound heritage of Jingchu badminton. The popularity of the “Village BA” and “I Want to Go to Famous Cities Badminton Tournament” has ignited the passion for national fitness in both urban and rural areas… Nearly 200 events are held every year, making “weekly activities and monthly competitions” the norm.
Today, the city’s team of social sports instructors reaches 16,000, becoming the “guides” for scientific fitness among the masses; the city’s 177 registered sports associations have penetrated into communities, schools, stadiums and other places like capillaries. When the Football Association, Tai Chi Association, etc. have repeatedly achieved good results in provincial competitions, and Yumen Quan has been selected as a provincial intangible cultural heritage, we can see that sports have been deeply integrated into the blood of the city, becoming a way of life for Jingzhou people and a vibrant expression of the city.
Competitive sports: From “solid foundation” to “emerging talents in large numbers”, let talents continue to flourish
On the evening of November 12, 2025, at the men’s U20 final of the 15th National Games, when the final whistle sounded, Jingzhou athletes Gao Gao and Hu Guiying hugged their teammates tightly. At this moment, the Hubei men’s football team won the National Games gold medal for the first time, and behind the historic breakthrough, there is a distinct “Jingzhou mark” engraved on it.
Behind the National Games report card is Jingzhou’s years of deep cultivation and accumulation of competitive sports. In recent years, Jingzhou has continued to deepen the integration of sports and education, building a “1+11+N” youth sports reserve talent diversified training system with city sports schools as the core, supplemented by youth sports clubs and schools with traditional sports projects. It has been deployed in 11 new cycles throughout the city (202 3-2026) Youth Sports Training Project Base, has successively named 68 schools with “one school, one product” and “one school, multiple products” traditional sports projects, forming a development pattern of “sports school-led, diversified collaboration, and complementary projects”, so that sports talent training has a solid foundation and sufficient stamina. At the same time, various events such as the “Future Cup” youth series championships, “Running Boys” special activities, “Sports and Education Integration Cup” winter and summer camps, and “Thousands of Teachers and Hundreds of Schools” sports support teaching are carried out all year round, and thousands of reserve talents are reserved for competitive sports every year.
The sweat on the training field will eventually pour out the glory on the field. In 2025, five projects of the Municipal Sports School and Honghu Children’s Sports School were selected into the provincial “61530X” sports school key projects, and 10 coaches were included in the coaching team of the provincial youth training key projects, and the level of professionalism continued to improve. In the province’s 2025 annual championships, young swimmers won 19 gold medals and gymnasts won 8 gold medals. Diving, trampoline, football and other events blossomed, and the talent reserve was transformed into real competition results.
The efficient operation of the conveying mechanism allows “Jingzhou Power” to continue to shine on a higher stage. Over the years, Jingzhou Sports School has continued to play its role as the main frontier for talent transportation, delivering more than 400 outstanding sports reserve talents to the country, and producing a number of Olympic champions, world champions, Asian champions and national champions, constantly bringing glory to the country and adding color to the province.
With solid talent training and delivery results, the city’s sports school has also been successfully selected as the “National Key High-level Sports Reserve Talent Base (2021-2024)”, “National Key Football Sports School”, “National Badminton, Basketball, Table Tennis Reserve Talent Base” and “2028-2032 Olympic Cycle Badminton Reserve Talent Base”, further highlighting the important position of Jingzhou Sports in the national reserve talent training system.
Sports events: From “event traffic” to “city empowerment”, let your business card shine
In 2025, the National Games badminton preliminaries and the National Historical and Cultural Cities Badminton Invitational Tournament will once again be held in Jingzhou, which not only attracted top domestic players to compete, but also focused the nation’s attention on this ancient city. Inside and outside the stadium, the Warring States Robe check-in points, the intangible cultural heritage display area, and Chu culture experience games make sports events a three-dimensional window to showcase urban culture. This is a vivid embodiment of Jingzhou’s “event+” strategy.
In recent years, Jingzhou has successfully hosted a series of high-profile events such as the badminton individual competitions of the 14th and 15th National Games mass events, the 2025 National Sports and Culture Promotion Event and Beautiful China·National Fitness Run, the Chinese Dragon Boat Open, the Jingzhou Marathon, the China Car (RV) Camping Conference, the Hubei Sports Industry Development Conference, and the Hubei Provincial Social Club Games. Last year alone, more than 30 national and provincial competitions were held in Jingzhou, attracting more than 1 million participants and spectators, and driving comprehensive consumption of more than 2 billion yuan.
Every event is a test of the city’s comprehensive capabilities, and it is also a chance to seize development opportunities. Jingzhou innovatively launched the “Travel Jingzhou with the Event” brand, extending the competition venue to business districts, scenic spots, and neighborhoods. Contestants can visit the city’s attractions for free with their participation certificates. The deep integration of sports, culture, tourism, and commerce has doubled the economic effects of the event—accommodation, catering, transportation, tourism and other related industries have been fully activated, and the “traffic” brought by the event is being transformed into an “increment” for urban development.
When marathon runners cross the ancient city wall, when dragon boat races race along the moat, when badminton players swing rackets in modern venues… Tradition and modernity, history and vitality blend here, and the image of Jingzhou that is both heavy and young, elegant and dynamic becomes increasingly clear.
Sports industry: From “manufacturing workshop” to “innovation engine”, let the momentum continue to surge
At the Paris Olympics, the sailing and hydrofoil equipment used by Chinese athletes was produced by Jingzhou Suli Composite Materials Company; the ski that helped Chinese skier He Shuyu win the women’s championship in the U14 snowboarding category of the FWT World Snow Tour came from Jingzhou’s local brand Xiangruichi; the artificial turf for the English Premier League Tottenham Hotspur club is exclusively supplied by Jingzhou’s Greentown Sports… The rise of these “hidden champions” outlines the hard-core strength of Jingzhou’s sports manufacturing industry.
During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, Jingzhou insisted on using sports to shape the city, use sports to develop industries, and use sports to benefit the people, and the sports industry achieved leapfrog growth. According to statistics, as of 2025, the total output of the city’s sports industry will be close to 14.2 billion yuan. The city has more than 2,800 sports business entities, covering the entire chain of manufacturing, sales, events, and training. A vibrant industrial ecology has been formed.
Shishou Huazhong Sports Industrial Park has formed a complete industrial chain, witnessing the growth of industrial clusters; the construction of Qingji Industrial Park of Public Security Bureau is advancing, indicating the layout of “ice, snow, and water” projects; Jingzhou Phoenix Mountain International Ski Resort has officially signed a contract, which will create a new landmark for the integration of culture, tourism and sports in our city. From issuing sports consumption coupons to activate the market, to organizing companies to participate in exhibitions to expand the market, from introducing major projects to cultivating local leaders, a set of “combination punches” to promote high-quality development of the sports industry is continuing to work hard.
National fitness craze is surging, competitive sports are reaching new heights, the integration of sports and education is fruitful, event business cards are getting shinier, and the sports industry is surging with momentum…Sports has been deeply embedded in the urban development texture and has become an important engine for promoting high-quality urban development. It not only carries citizens’ yearning for a better life and sense of gain, but also becomes a strong driving force to improve the city’s energy level and stimulate innovation vitality. Under the lasting infiltration of this sports empowerment, the thousand-year-old city will continue to glow with more vitality and a more high-spirited style.
Original title: “Thousand-year-old ancient city competition—A review of the development of sports in Jingzhou during the 14th Five-Year Plan”
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