A series of outdoor basketball games composed of amateurs only in southwest China’s Guizhou Province attracted more than 50 million online viewers in only four days. The Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture final of this year’s tournament took place in Taipan Town, Taijiang County. Organized by and played completely by locals, the tournament attracted 16 teams to compete first in groups and then a knockout stage from July 30-Aug 2. For the winning team, the prize was a cow weighing 650 kilograms, and for the runners-up, two goats.
With the area happily free of any pandemic risk, countless rows of audience crowded around the open-air court-either on their feet or sitting on small camp chairs-to cheer on family members, relatives and neighbors from the morning sessions until midnight. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian joined in the fun, sharing a video of the games on Twitter accompanied by the message: “The rural basketball match in Guizhou is on! What a great atmosphere!”
“The number of audiences has been skyrocketing every year,” said Cen Jianglong, a basketball fan from Taipan village and a co-organizer of the tournament, “The key to its popularity is that this tournament truly belongs to local people and connects neighborhoods like no other event does.”
This year’s tournament is part of the “Gorgeous Countryside” campaign. Launched across the province in 2021, the “Gorgeous Countryside” campaign that promotes development in rural China in culture, tourism and sports, has grown rapidly facilitated by the expansion of local sports venues and exercise facilities. Across the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong autonomous prefecture, there are nine sports stadiums, eight venues at the county-level, and 43 multifunctional(多功能的) sports facilities. Across Guizhou, almost every town has a basketball court.
“The development of sports facilities has laid a solid foundation for such highly popular events to go to the next level and encourage more people from the countryside to exercise more,” said Zhang Bin, an official from the sports bureau in Taijiang county.
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