On the green ways of Shendang Town, many villagers jog or walk, enjoying the morning serenity; in the afternoon, people play basketballs or badminton at the Granary Culture Industry Park; and in the evening, the square in front of Zhu Jusheng Exhibition Hall is live with children playing and chasing each other, and square dance enthusiasts dancing to cheerful music... Today, such vibrant national fitness scenes have become ubiquitous in Shendang. Seizing the opportunity of rural revitalization, this town has made rural sports a key focus to improve public health, stimulate rural cultural vitality, deeply integrate national fitness into rural development and lead a new fitness trend in the countryside.

Fixing fitness facilities near residents’ homes to build a more convenient “15-minute fitness circle”

To address the shortage and uneven distribution of sports facilities in rural areas, this town has prioritized the construction of sports infrastructure as part of its livelihood projects. By leveraging both government funds and social resources, it has upgraded its sports facilities. In recent years, the town has constructed three multifunctional sports fields and seven public fitness centers, making all of its administrative villages available to sports facilities.

The town has also cleverly integrated sports elements into its beautiful countryside initiative. For instance, it integrates sports elements into the Granary Culture Industry Park, one of its old buildings being transformed into an indoor multifunctional sports hall. This not only preserves old rural venues but also provides standard indoor basketball and badminton courts, making it a popular destination for villagers to do exercises and organize small-scale matches.

To date, the per capita sports area of the town reaches 1.88 square meters. A convenient and fully functional “15-minute fitness circle” has taken shape, realizing villagers’ dreams to do exercises near their homes.

Organizing “year-round” events to ignite residents’ fitness enthusiasm

Leveraging its characteristics, Shendang has hosted Ancient Town Outdoor Sports Multi-event of Yangtze River Delta for two consecutive years. This event has attracted hundreds of people from the Delta region to participate and local villagers to cheer and watch, greatly enhancing the town’s reputation. In addition to this high-profile multi-event and three major team ball competitions, Shendang’s cultural stations and villages (communities) also organize the training and performances of tai chi, flexible ball, and Baduanjin (a traditional Chinese health-preserving exercise) for elderly groups. Fun sports meets and neighborhood sports festivals are regularly held, truly achieving the goal that sports activities are organized monthly, and each village owns a sports team, and every resident has the opportunity to participate in the sports activities. These popular and dynamic events promote physical health and reinforce neighborly relations and rural cohesion.

Building a “three-tier sports instructor” network to promote organizations-led fitness

To improve sports services and people’s fitness, Shendang has built a three-tier sports instructor network at the town, village and community levels. By inviting professional coaches to conduct training in rural areas and regularly organizing training sessions for sports instructors, the town has trained over 60 village-level social sports instructors. Now they are active in villages, serving as pioneers in publicizing fitness knowledge and organizing sports activities.

This town also encourages and supports sports enthusiasts and fitness experts to establish various rural sports organizations, such as “Shendang Running Group”, “Xinfeng Basketball Team” and “Wusheng Dragon Dance Team”. Among them, “Wusheng Dragon Dance Team” is a well-known women’s team composed of village staff and art enthusiasts, has delivered standout performances at county-wide activities like “Our Village Gala”, and become a famous business card of this town’s rural sports. These sports organizations have effectively enhanced the rural sports in an overall way and attracted more villagers to participate in the fitness through “training via competitions” and “promoting competitions through training”.

In recent years, Shendang has intensified efforts to upgrade infrastructure, innovate sports activities and train talents to establish a new national fitness trend, which makes villagers healthier, happier and better-mannered, and injects powerful “sports energy” into rural revitalization.