Major sports projects under way to provide more fitness facilities
Print Edition
SHANGHAI is making efforts to meet citizens’ demands by building more sports facilities and venues, Shanghai Sports Bureau said yesterday.
The bureau is working to raise awareness for staying healthy through exercise, it said.
The construction of some major sports venues has already begun or will start this year, including Xujiahui Sports Park, Pudong Soccer Court, Shanghai Citizens’ Sports Park and Chongming National Sports Training Base. Some other projects, such as a basketball arena, horse-riding park, sailing training base and cycling center, are under way.
Shanghai’s per-capita sports venue area was 1.83 square meters in 2016, revealed a report issued last year. The bureau said this was lower than those in the Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces as well as cities of Beijing and Tianjin. The per-capita sports venue area in the US and Japan is 16 and 19 square meters, publicly available information show.
The 2013 national general survey of sports venues revealed that Shanghai had more than 38,000 sports venues and its downtown per-capita sports venue area was less than 1 square meter. Some indoor sports facilities such as non-profit community fitness centers which allow residents to do several sports did not meet the public demand.
Although the Shanghai Hongkou Football Stadium has many different facilities such as squash courts and basketball courts, the squash courts are always occupied and it’s hard to reserve one, a female fitness enthusiast who lives in Hongkou District told Shanghai Daily. People sometimes even park their cars in the basketball courts. The lack of public sports venues nearby also make neighboring Luxun Park very crowded.
Another fitness enthusiast Wang Xiang finds the public opening times for the track-and-field grounds in primary and secondary schools near his home in Pudong and his office in Jing’an too early for commuters. Although residents are still allowed to use them in the evening, the lights are off and it is hard to exercise in the dark.
“If you go to some downtown sports venues like Luwan Stadium or Jing’an Workers’ Stadium after work, especially after dinner time, you’ll find the tracks are full of people who stay there until they close,” said Wang.
But he added: “It’s very nice to have the waterfront area along the Huangpu River open to the public and now it’s convenient for me to go cycling and jogging there.”
Last year, local sports authorities established or reconstructed 210 resident fitness venues, 75 fitness tracks and 65 sports courts.
Shanghai hosted 162 major international or national sports events in 2017 with international events accounting for nearly 40 percent of the total at 61. A community sports service program provided sports training and lectures on fitness to 165 local communities and nearly 110,000 residents.
The report released last year said the proportion of residents who exercise regularly increased to 42.2 percent from 40.8 percent in 2015. Over the New Year’s Day holiday last week, more than 60,000 residents took part in sports events. The newly opened 45-kilometer riverside area attracted many people to exercise and use the sports facilities there.
At present, Shanghai has over 55,000 social sports instructors helping with citizens’ fitness issues and almost all communities have their own service spots.
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