Sports

Hunan has achieved continuous progress in competitive sports, mass sports, sports of youths, and various sports related industries.

Competitive Sports

Hunan has persisted in advancing competitive sports development with its own characteristics. It has cradled 12 Olympic champions, who have collectively secured 18 Olympic gold medals. By the end of 2023, Hunan athletes had won 250 world, 421 Asian and 1,695 national championships in both international and domestic competitions.

Mass Sports and Fitness

Hunan has a solid foundation for mass sports participation. Hunan has taken the lead nationwide in initiating many featured sports events, including the "river, lake, mountain and road" national fitness brand activities, county-featured sports programs, and a series of creative brand activities such as the "Torch Inheritance - China Health Run". According to the annual statistical communiqué, 3,337 mass sports events have been held around the province in 2023, and 430 rural villages have been newly equipped with sports facilities.

In 2023, the pioneering Hunan "Cloud" Sports Games was involved into the National Fitness Games Online, attracting over 710,000 participants and reaching an online audience of more than 1.2 billion. The Zhuzhou "Factory BA" and Liuyang "All BA" basketball games were shortlisted for the first batch of quality cases of the national mass "three big ball sports" events.

Sports Venues and Facilities

Hunan has been advancing renovation of sports venues and facilities, revitalization of brand events, and modification of fitness guidance.

In line with the requirement of "activate existing resources and utilize stock assets", Hunan has rolled out an implementation plan for enhancing sports venues and facilities construction in 2024 and 2025. The plan integrates renovation of old urban residential communities, opening and sharing of parks and green spaces, and implementation of the initiatives of "promoting table tennis in communities and parks", to make use of the urban public spaces to build and renovate sports venues and facilities.

As of February 2025, Hunan has completed renovation of 12 "pocket sports parks", with other 9 small sports parks and one small public fitness center under construction. The per capita sports venue area in the province has increased to 2.88 square meters (pending confirmation by the General Administration of Sport of China). A total of 121 public sports venues are open to the public free of charge or at low cost, benefiting over 53 million people.

Chinese source: Hunan Daily, Hunan Statistics Bureau

Updated in February 2025