Popular Sports Festival attracts 8,000 participants
Nearly 8,000 sports lovers were gathered in Pudong's Lingang area on Saturday for the 15th Shanghai International Popular Sports Festival for both trendy and traditional sports activities.
China's Asian Games track cycling champion Zhou Yu was named the ambassador of the festival, encouraging citizens to take part in sports activities more and develop a healthy lifestyle.
The festival involves both traditional and trendy sports activities.
The whole-day event provides a rich choice of sports items. Apart from 10-kilometer and 5km running competitions around the landmark Dishui Lake, participants can also take part in fashionable activities such as Frisbee, the steeplechase, paddle boarding, kayaking, rugby, as well as traditional sports like rope jumping, dart, kite flying and mini basketball.
Organizers have arranged exhibition items like Wing Chun, shuttlecock, as well as robot rodeo and aircraft simulators. There are also folk culture activities like paper cutting and sugar painting that attracted a lot of family participants.
The participants include expats from 11 countries.
Trendy activities like lawn camping, sport market and music carnival were also arranged, featuring live band performances.
The event also attracted more than 100 expats from 11 countries, including Bulgaria, Hungary, Uzbekistan, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, the United States, and Thailand.
Shanghai International Popular Sports Festival was first introduced in 2009. Jointly organized by Shanghai Sports Federation and Shanghai People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the event aims to involve more foreigners and community participants in popular sports.
