China Launches First Joint-venture Swimming Club

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, August 18, 2003

China Launches First Joint-venture Swimming Club

China has launched an ambitious campaign to turn some 7,000 swimming pools nationwide into professional clubs, as the sport's first ever joint-venture club was founded on Monday Beijijng.

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China has launched an ambitious campaign to turn some 7,000 swimming pools nationwide into professional clubs, as the sport's first ever joint-venture club was founded on Monday Beijijng.

Sanctioned by the China Swimming Association (CSA), the CSA-Kyoei Swimming Club is located in the Beijing Sports Fitness Center in the southeastern part of the Chinese capital. It is to be run jointly by the Tokyo-based Kyoei Swimming Club Machida and the Social Sports Center of the Beijing Sports Bureau.

"In establishing the club, we are doing something down-to-earth to apply the nationwide sports for All-fitness program," said ShangXiutang, vice-president of the CSA.

"With China's economies in rapid progress during the last two decades, our country's swimming population is on a steady rise. This has laid a solid foundation for establishing professional swimming clubs,"the CSA official said.

"But we lack the experience in the management of such clubs," he admitted.

"It is expected that the new-type Beijing club, equipped with up-to-date gear and advanced management, could serve as a window and model for other Chinese pools and clubs across the country. We hope they could learn something from the Beijing club and turn themselves step by step into highly-efficient and satisfying pro clubs," Shang added.

Many of China's swimming pools have been owned and run by the state or local sports authorities, before reforms taken in the last decade turned some into privately operated. But many have been poorly run, serving simply as aquatic entertainment centers with such main function as to teach children the basic swimming techniques.

The new Beijing club has hired well-trained coaches and instructors from both the Japanese club and among former Chinese swimmers. Kikuta Zhaohui, vice-chairperson of the new club's management committee and head instructor, is a former member of the Beijing swimming team. Before her immigration to Japan, she had been a multiple national champion and winner of 100- and 200-meter breaststroke and relay events at the 1985 Asia and Pacific Age-group swimming championships in Hong Kong.

"I am glad to provide service to swimming fans back in my native country," she said after the club's founding ceremony on Monday. "With high-level instruction and coaching, I am confident that we could provide safety-first, human-oriented and top-quality service to satisfy club members," she added.

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