Village football sparks sports frenzy in SW China

GUIYANG, China, July 8 (Xinhua) -- Last weekend in Rongjiang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, the "Cun Chao" (Village Super League) Sports Center was bustling with crowds.

Despite the stifling heat, people's enthusiasm for football and rural sports remained undimmed. A three-day sports event was held from July 5 to 7, not only covering sports like football, basketball and table tennis, but also games featuring traditional elements, including stilt racing and corn peeling.

Wu Bin, a 15-year-old student at a middle school in Rongjiang, participated in the stilt racing with his classmates. Though he had emerged victorious in school contests, it was still challenging for Wu to compete in such a large-scale competition.

The bamboo sticks were even as tall as Wu, who quickly stepped on the stick, moved forward with the sticks as his "feet", and finished second in the 100-meter race.

"The stilt race is demanding for athletes' speed and physical coordination. On stilts, we have to use the same side hands and feet together," Wu said.

Hou Zhenhua, a PE teacher and stilt race coach at Rongjiang, was delighted to see the students' performance. "Stilt racing is one of the activities in our school club, through which I hope students can not only exercise their balance and willpower, but also feel the charm of traditional ethnic sports," he said.

There was also a ceremony with both ethnic and international elements, which not only attracted sports enthusiasts from China's Shandong, Tianjin and Guangdong, but also international visitors and students from countries including the Netherlands, Italy and Canada.

Among them, Vincent from the Netherlands has been living in Shanghai for eight years, and played a friendly match with other football enthusiasts in Cun Chao.

"Here you can feel the strong atmosphere of mass sports and enjoy the pure joy brought by football and other sports," Vincent said.

When 73-year-old Yuan Chengli stepped on the running track, he was welcomed with loud applause. Although he didn't reach the final, he impressed everyone with his spirit of competing on the same stage as young runners.

"I hope my affection for running can help strengthen my body, and my appearance in Cun Chao can inspire more people to go outdoors to improve their physical and mental health and find more fun in life," Yuan said.

From football to village sports, Cun Chao has always been a gathering place for global sports enthusiasts, with sports being the shared language, according to You Shouyi, general counselor of the Guizhou Village Super League.