体坛英语资讯：Various national games boost Chinas sporting prowess

NANCHANG, Jiangxi Province, Oct. 14 -- China holds various multi-sports games for professional and amateur athletes with different age groups and diverse backgrounds, scouting for the most talented ones for the Olympic Games and world championships.

Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang first caught the attention by winning the 110m hurdles at the National Games in 2001 at the age of 18 before cementing his dominance at home by becoming the champion at the National City Games in 2003 at 20.

The talented "flying man" shocked the world when he won the Olympic gold medal at the Athens Olympic Games one year later.

Most Chinese athletes' roads to the top are choreographed.

When aged under 20, they participate in the City Games, the most important junior competition in the country.

When they get older and better, they will have the opportunity to compete at the National Games, the most premier sports event in China.

NBA player Yao Ming, badminton "Super Dan" Lin Dan and table tennis ace Deng Yaping all set off their careers at the City Games.

On October 16, the 7th City Games will open in Nanchang, the capital city of Jiangxi province, featuring some 7,000 young athletes over 25 sports.

"The National Games is a mini-Olympics of China while the City Games is the foundation of Chinese sports," said Cai Jiadong, director of the Competitive Sports Department of the State General Administration of Sport

An increasing number of sports games have been created to cater to athletes of different levels, age groups and backgrounds.

From youths to seniors, from summer sports to winter, Chinese athletes could always find suitable games at home to take part in.

Since the Beijing Olympic Games, there has been a debate in China about whether the pursuit of Olympic medals should be downgraded and more government efforts and funding devoted to school sports and popular sports.

The State Council of China carried out a series of measures to try to get more of China's 1.3 billion people involved in sports.

Several multi-sports games involving amateur athletes, like the All-China Games, the Students' Games, the University Games, the Farmers' Games and the Ethnic Games, play a crucial role in promoting sports and making life more fun.

The All-China Games is an event for non-Olympic sports, providing platforms for model aircraft, orienteering, skydiving and other rising sports, while the Ethnic Games gathers 55 Chinese ethnic groups, which account about 8.49 percent of the country's population, and features plenty of sports which are never contested at any other games, like dragon-boat racing, shuttle-cock kicking and pear ball event.

More for fun than for medals, the Chinese Farmers' Games features fishing, Xiangqi, or Chinese chess, Chinese-style wrestling, lion dance and load-bearing biking.