CEO out in front as China bitten by exercise bug
Print Edition
YU Liang, CEO of real estate developer Vanke, used to be a busy entrepreneur who seldom exercised. But in order to pursue his dream of conquering Mount Everest, he started running four years ago.
The 49-year-old reached the top a year ago and has now become an enthusiastic promoter of running.
He launched a series of road race events called “Run for Fun” last year and this year they have spread to 60 cities in China attracting more than 100,000 participants.
“When I asked my friends to climb Mount Qomolangma (the Tibetan name for Everest) with me, no one joined me. But when I asked them to join me in running, nearly everyone said yes,” he said.
Yu has lost nearly 15 kilograms since he started and running is now part of his life. He takes his running shoes with him even on business trips.
“I want to continue promoting the ‘Run for Fun’ events, encouraging more people in China to start to run and go for a healthy lifestyle,” Yu said.
“Some people told me I am doing the work that the government and sports associations should do. I said yes, because national fitness is a cause that everyone need to contribute.”
While entrepreneurs like Yu are organizing events, government sports departments are developing apps for smartphones.
About 1,200 kilometers north of Shenzhen, where Vanke’s headquarters are, the Sports Bureau of Hubei Province has developed a smartphone application named “Go Exercise” in 2014 to help the public get fit.
With it, citizens in Wuhan, the provincial capital, can find the nearest venue for exercise at a reasonable cost or even for free.
“It is a common problem in most parts of China that the public often find it’s difficult to find a suitable place for exercise. And on the other hand, most sports venues and facilities are bothered with low utilization rate,” bureau head Hu Dechun said.
During a test run of “Go Exercise,” about half a million citizens in Wuhan used it. Hu plans to introduce the app across the province next year.
The prosperity of grassroots running events and the rise of sports oriented apps both reflect an ever-growing demand for fitness.
In October, the State Council announced plans to develop the country’s sports industry and raise the sector’s annual output to 5 trillion yuan (about US$810 billion) by 2025.
The document also said that promoting public fitness will become one of the government’s national strategies and laid out goals of per capita area of sport grounds reaching two square meters by 2025 and people who exercise regularly reaching 500 million.
A survey in August showed that 50.5 percent of Chinese people from 20 to 69 exercised at least once in 2013, a 1.3 percent increase compared with 2012.
In spite of the fact that not all of them didn’t exercise frequently enough, the annual average expense in exercise and sports-related goods reached 645 yuan.
“These numbers made us believe that we can achieve the 5-trillion-yuan target by 2025,” Liu said, although he also admitted that the distribution of sports facilities was not balanced between regions, especially between urban and rural areas.
“That is one of the main problems that we need to cope with in the foreseeable future,” Liu said.
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