Steelworker Han Hui flipped his jersey over, his thumb brushing the name printed across the back.
Fifteen teams from nine regional divisions across China converged on the capital for the two-day tournament, news.qq.com reported. The competing squads represented heavy industries including transportation, public construction, energy, and water conservancy.
The invitational event, known widely as the “Worker BA,” was established in 2025 by the China Construction Third Engineering Bureau, news.qq.com reported. The 2026 edition advanced through three sequential stages: preliminary site warm-ups, regional promotion tournaments, and the Beijing finals.
Throughout the year, the tournament staged more than 400 matches across 33 cities, according to news.qq.com. Those contests drew participation from over 300 organizations, more than 800 teams, and roughly 8,000 individual participants nationwide.
The tournament operates under a core ethos focused on labor unions, construction-site stages, master craftsman leadership, worker participation, and engineering quality, news.qq.com reported. The Beijing finals were guided by the trade union committee of China State Construction Engineering Corporation and hosted by China Construction Third Engineering Bureau Group.
The 15 finalist teams featured a mix of corporate and institutional entries alongside specialized industrial worker squads, news.qq.com reported.
Alongside corporate engineers and project managers stood front-line construction professionals, including steel fixers, scaffolders, tower crane operators, and shield machine operators, news.qq.com reported.
“This is my first time playing a match in the capital city of Beijing,” Hubei Communications Investment Group player Fei Yifan said, as reported by news.qq.com.
Xiang Wei, a member of the industrial worker representative team composed of frontline laborers, told news.qq.com that returning to the project site after matches left him feeling refreshed. “The Worker BA has enriched our lives and provided a very good platform for the hobbies and spare-time life of us frontline industrial workers,” he said.
For young site personnel like Niu Shihao, a 26-year-old construction supervisor at the Tangshun Lake Phase II project in Wuhan with China Construction Third Engineering Bureau, the tournament offered a link back to his daily job, news.qq.com reported. During pre-match warm-ups in Beijing, Niu propped his smartphone against a water bottle to video-call colleagues at his worksite.
“Let everyone take a look at the venue where I’m playing today,” Niu said, according to news.qq.com.
Organizers noted that the tournament functions as an extension of party-building initiatives aimed at fostering clean supply chain ecosystems, news.qq.com reported.
The Sichuan Regional Combined Team captured the championship title, news.qq.com reported. The Eastern Regional Combined Team finished as the runner-up, while the South China Regional Combined Team claimed third place.
Keep reading
