国产热热热精品,亚洲视频久久】日韩,三级婷婷在线久久,99人妻精品视频,精品九热人人肉肉在线,AV东京热一区二区,91po在线视频观看,久久激情宗合,青青草黄色手机视频

China / China

Amateur runners may get shot at 2020 Olympic glory

By Sun Xiaochen (China Daily) Updated: 2017-03-17 08:13

Riding on the popularity of marathons in China, the sport's national governing body announced on Thursday that it will allow amateurs the opportunity to compete for a place at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Aimed at triggering greater interest in long-distance running, the Chinese Athletics Association unveiled a plan to offer entries to amateur runners if they meet qualifying standards in domestic trials.

The association will offer two spots - one man and one woman - on its national team for the 2020 Olympics to amateurs who can clock times faster than current Olympic qualifying standards of 2 hr 19 min for men and 2 hr 45 min for women.

Amateurs are defined as those who have never registered with the CAA for professional training with provincial and national teams, said Du Zhaocai, vice-president of the CAA.

"It's an experiment to integrate our Olympic program on the elite level and the mass fitness campaign at the grassroots. Hopefully, it will motivate more people to start running," Du said on Thursday.

Long-distance running is appealing to an increasing number of health-conscious urban Chinese as a fashionable exercise.

Last year, 328 marathons registered with the CAA were held across the country, attracting more than 2.8 million participants. There were only 134 such races attracting 1.5 million runners in 2015.

At some high-profile races, such as the Beijing Marathon, organizers have to run an online lottery to decide who will receive a place at the starting line as the number of registrants usually exceeds the total entries.

Despite serving as motivation for grassroots participants, the policy does not guarantee finding amateurs capable of meeting the qualifying standards, insiders said.

"It's more of a promotion ploy, because all the runners who are capable of reaching Olympic standards have been recruited by professional camps," said Kang Xu, a frequent runner and editor with Front Runner, a popular long-distance running magazine.

"The overall level of grassroots participation in China remains far behind their counterparts in strong marathon nations like the United States and Japan," he said.

Wang Jing, a runner who has finished 12 marathons, said the governing body should focus more on improving services to runners, logistics, medical support and post-race recovery at grassroots events to improve the experiences of participants.

sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn

Highlights
Hot Topics

...
遂昌县| 渝北区| 盖州市| 红安县| 南郑县| 中宁县| 乌什县| 拜城县| 郴州市| 南丰县| 衢州市| 依兰县| 闵行区| 汉沽区| 峨边| 万全县| 佛教| 平罗县| 红原县| 滕州市| 宁城县| 尖扎县| 龙门县| 调兵山市| 阳高县| 吉水县| 肇东市| 麦盖提县| 福贡县| 巨野县| 故城县| 遵义市| 灵璧县| 禄丰县| 云霄县| 皮山县| 定襄县| 雷山县| 辽源市| 太湖县| 横山县|