On July 27, Chinese athlete Sheng Lihao from Zhangjiagang, Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu province won the first gold medal of the Paris Olympics, which was also Zhangjiagang's first-ever Olympic gold medal.
Since the founding of Zhangjiagang, the city has attached great importance to sports.
The Zhangjiagang Sports School was founded in 1988. The school has trained several world and Asian champions such as weightlifter Liu Haihua, gymnast Weng Hao, and track and field athlete Yuan Qiqi.
The Nansha Weightlifting School in Zhangjiagang, founded in 1995, has trained numerous weightlifters for the national team and is regarded as a major source of weightlifting champions.
The sports industry is helping to empower high-quality development in Zhangjiagang, where there are 92.29 exercise facilities per 10,000 people.
The Zhangjiagang Dongdu Half Marathon, one of the biggest sports events held in the city, attracts 12,000 marathoners in 2023. [Photo/WeChat account: zhangjiagangfabu365]
Some of the city's most important honors include being designated as a "National Sports Industrial Demonstration Base", "China's Model County for Football", and "China's Model County for Fitness".
Having developed from one of the poorest areas in Suzhou to one of China's top three counties in terms of economic development for 30 consecutive years, the "Zhangjiagang spirit" - striving for excellence in everything, resonates with the Olympic motto of "Faster, Higher, Stronger - Together".