Running after opening ceremony of Chinese University Healthy Campus Tournament (all photos courtesy FUSC)
With the International Day of University Sport (IDUS) having recently taken place, activities and programmes in China played a strong part in celebrating university sport. The 2nd Chinese University Healthy Campus Tournament opening ceremony was held 24 September at Renmin University of China. This starts off a ten month programme that involves nearly 700,000 students from 500 universities, concluding 2 July, 2023. The theme for this year’s activities is “Improving Yourself” and will focus on self-exploration and self-improvement of university students through sport.
Participating teams are ranked in two categories with 80% based on physical activities and 20% based on healthy campus standards. The Federation of University Sports of China (FUSC) will also organise a series of lectures and exchange sessions with health ambassadors, both meant to attract more students and communities into sport. Additionally, FUSC has adopted 20 evaluation criteria from the FISU Health Campus programme into the tournament, including healthy campus management, nutrition, and physical activity and sport.
AUSF run challenge
Chinese universities also took part in the Asian University Sports Federation (AUSF) Run Challenge 2022 in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the organization and IDUS. This was a 30km challenge meant to symbolize and trace the 30 year development of AUSF. On 20 September, over 125 teams comprising 1,133 participants from 28 universities across China took part. 60 teams registered from Tianjin university alone, and all completed the 30km. Many universities captured video to highlight their campuses and participants as they took part.
“I thought I couldn’t finish my share of 3 kilometres running at the beginning, but still decided to challenge myself. When I finally made it together with the rest of my teammates, we were all very proud of ourselves. We will keep running to keep health and enrich our school life,” said Ms. Wei Chunyun from Tianjing University.
Dr. Liu Lixin during AUSF run challenge
FUSC also set an example itself with participating runners from within the Secretariat, including Dr. Liu Lixin, Secretary General of Joint Secretariat of FUSC and the Federation of School Sports of China (FSSC). He encouraged all involved in university sports to continue to make sports a part of their lives in the long run.
Leonz Eder, FISU Acting President remarked, “Let us not only think of sport and do sport on this special day but let us take this unifying day as an opportunity to strive for and implement sport and exercise daily, to let it become part of everyday life on campus and in our routines.” As demonstrated through these recent activities, both FUSC and Chinese universities are embodying these remarks and their commitment to lifelong sport.