Chinese New Year and its Most Famous Athletes
This weekend, a lot of news about Chinese New Year will be published, as it will be celebrated on January 25th.
Therefore, in this post, we want to share a bit about Chinese culture and its most well-known athletes.
A Very Important Celebration
Chinese New Year is arguably the most important traditional festival on its calendar. This day is also referred to by different names: Spring Festival, Lunar New Year of the Agricultural Calendar, and is known as Lunar New Year abroad.
The festivities and celebrations of Chinese New Year or Spring Festival begin on the first day of the lunar month (the new moon closest to the day equidistant between the winter solstice and the spring equinox). This year it will be on Friday, January 24, 2020, and the festival will last from January 25 to February 8, about 15 days in total.
It is celebrated in countries such as China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and Singapore, leading to the displacement of millions of people traveling to their hometowns to celebrate the holidays with their families. We are talking about a celebration by a quarter of the world's population.
China and the Olympics
In the case of athletics, China is still a sleeping giant, although there has been a lot of work to change that.
It is evidently a country with enormous potential that has not yet been fully exploited in athletics, being, along with other Asian countries, traditionally weak in this sport throughout the 20th century.
It was at the end of that century, starting with the Barcelona 92 Olympics, when China began to make great strides in the Olympic Games. On that occasion, race walker Chen Yueling won the first Olympic gold for Chinese athletics.
At the Atlanta 96 Olympics, athlete Wang Junxia won gold in the 5,000 meters and silver in the 10,000 meters, becoming the first Chinese athlete to win two medals in the same edition of the Olympic Games.
In Athens 2004, Liu Xiang and Xing Huina respectively won gold in the 110-meter hurdles and in the women's 10,000 meters.
In London 2012, Chen Ding won the gold medal in the 20 km race walk.
Notable Chinese Athletes in Athletics
Su Bingtian
Bingtian is a Chinese athlete specializing in sprint events.
A notable fact about him is that he was the first Chinese-born sprinter to break the 10-second barrier in the 100-meter dash in athletics, achieving a time of 9.91 seconds. This happened on June 22, 2018, in Madrid, where he won first prize in the men's 100-meter race at the 2018 World Challenge Meeting.
That personal best in the 100 meters makes him the current co-owner of the Asian 100m record, shared with Qatari Femi Ogunode.
He also stands out for his personal best in the indoor 60-meter dash, stopping the clock at 6.42 seconds, also making him the current holder of the Asian 60m record. This mark also places him among the top five all-time 60-meter runners.
Liu Hong
Liu Hong is a Chinese athlete specializing in the 20 km race walk.
She stands out for being an Olympic champion at London 2012 and a three-time world champion in Daegu 2011, Beijing 2015, and Doha 2019.
Her Records
Liu holds the world record for the 20 km race walk with a time of 1 hour, 24 minutes, and 38 seconds. She achieved this on June 6, 2015, in La Coruña at the 2015 Cantones Grand Prix.
She also broke the 4-hour barrier in the 50-kilometer race walk, setting a new world record at that distance of 3h 59 min and 15 secs when she won the Huangshan Grand Prix (China).
Liu Xiang
Liu is a retired Chinese athlete specializing in the 110-meter hurdles, who was the main figure in Chinese athletics in the first decade of the 21st century.
His personal best in the 110-meter hurdles is 12.88 seconds, achieved in 2006, which was the current Asian record and world record until June 2008.
He was also an Olympic champion at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, where he surprised everyone by winning the gold medal and equaling the world record held by Britain's Colin Jackson since 1993 with 12.91 seconds.
