Twenty teams gathered on November 14 at the Orange Sea Sports Ground in Sanxi Town to launch the Tianfu Orange Township Cup Tuojiang River Basin Basketball Invitation Tournament, known locally as the Jintang Orange BA, alongside the Jintang Village Sugar Fair and citrus harvesting season.
The tournament runs through mid-December with matches scheduled every weekend, featuring both youth and junior brackets. Teams traveled from across the Tuojiang River basin, including Guanghan in Deyang and Jiangyang in Luzhou, to compete for the top four spots in each group, cbgc.scol.com.cn reported.
The opening match pitted the Tianfu Orange Township team against the Longquan Upstream Community side in a fast-paced contest featuring tight defensive shifts and perimeter passing. During the opening ceremony, organizers held a flag-granting ceremony to establish the Tuojiang River Basin Basketball Alliance, setting up a regular cultural and sports exchange framework for the region.
Sanxi Town holds the title of the hometown of Chinese navel oranges, maintaining about 30,000 mu of citrus orchards that yield roughly 80,000 tons of fruit annually. Local officials have pushed to integrate agriculture, culture, tourism, and sports by developing the Tianfu Orange Township agricultural tourism complex, which earned a national AAA-level tourist scenic spot designation in 2024.
The town has leaned into rural sports tourism by hosting previous events like the National Hot Air Balloon Elite Tournament. This year’s basketball competition anchors a broader push to strengthen the local citrus supply chain through cooperative agreements.
Ten local citrus sales experts received certificates during the launch event, while state platform companies, trade enterprises, and collective economic organizations signed supply and e-commerce sales contracts. These agreements aim to secure steady orders and clear distribution bottlenecks for growers.
Outside the court, the village sugar fair and Sanxi bazaar drew crowds with displays of agricultural goods, handmade crafts, and regional food items like Zhugao soft-shelled turtle, Zhaojia morel mushrooms, and Fuxing dendrobium. Stalls featured local citrus varieties alongside other specialty products.
“The quality of our oranges is excellent this year, and visitors keep coming by to ask about prices and buy fruit,” said Yan Kai, a citrus grower born in the 1990s.
Organizers paired the sports matches with citrus picking tours, livestreamed selling sessions, discount ticket promotions, and traditional acrobatics performances. Area businesses, including the Longying Tiancheng and Yuhuangshan scenic areas alongside the Ganyulan commercial complex, introduced special lodging and dining packages for tournament visitors.
Tournament matches continue through mid-December at the Orange Sea Sports Ground, with weekend fixtures determining the finalists in both the youth and junior divisions.
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