A young athlete performs at the booth of COOGHI during the 32nd China International Bicycle Fair in east China's Shanghai, May 5, 2024. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)

Earlier this August, Chinese skateboarder Zheng Haohao competed as the youngest athlete at the 2024 Paris Olympics at the age of 11.

Behind Zheng's debut is the growing number of Chinese youngsters participating in this niche sport, which made its Olympic Games debut at the 2021 Tokyo Games. It is estimated that millions of people have started to participate in skateboarding over the past few years in China.  

The growing popularity of skateboarding and other sports activities in China, especially among the young people, is fueled partly by the country's promotion of public fitness.

Promoting public fitness is a priority of China's sports policy, according to a Xinhua think tank report titled "The Road to Becoming a Sports Powerhouse," which was released on Tuesday.

"China is striving to better meet the sports needs of different age groups and categories," said the report authored by Xinhua Institute, a high-end think tank of Xinhua News Agency.

In 2014, China elevated public fitness to a national strategy. By the end of 2023, the number of sports venues in China had reached nearly 4.6 million, with a total area of 4.07 billion square meters and a per capita area of 2.89 square meters.

By 2020, over 37 percent of the Chinese population had regularly participated in sports. The country's life expectancy exceeded 78 years in 2021.  

Besides skateboarding, other sports such as cycling, sport climbing and surfing, which were rather unfamiliar to most people, have become new attractions in China, not to mention sports like tennis, golf and snow skating that have already been well accepted by people in many parts of the country.

Ni Jia, founder of a Shanghai-based bicycle shop, said her shop only sold two or three bikes per month on average in the past but the number surged to 70 to 80 in 2023, with prices ranging from a few hundred yuan to tens of thousands of yuan. "The market is quite large," Ni said.

According to an industrial report, China had 636 climbing gyms in 2023, an increase of 31 percent from 2022. "Climbing gyms have become extremely popular," said Zhou Jinfang, manager of a Shanghai-based climbing gym, who noted that the gym had seen an average monthly foot traffic of about 1,500 to 1,600 people in the past few months.

A report released by China's e-commerce giant JD.com indicates that in the first half of this year, the transaction volume for climbing chalk, helmets and shoes increased year-on-year by 151 percent, 42 percent and 40 percent, respectively; while transaction volumes for surf swimsuits, leashes and surfboards grew by 473 percent, 175 percent and 40 percent, respectively.

In response to the growing sports enthusiasm of the public, the government has promoted the coordinated development of recreational sports, competitive sports and the sports industry, which is making sports a new driving force for economic development.

China's sports industry has expanded at an average annual rate of over 10 percent in the past decade, according to the think tank report. Sports consumption and sports industry are increasingly important as a new form of consumption and a sunrise industry, respectively, with significant growth potential still ahead, according to Wang Yuxiong, head of the center for sports industry development research at the Beijing-based Central University of Finance and Economics.

Sports used to merely mean basic physical exercises in China decades ago. Nowadays, people have access to more sports choices and facilities. Regularly taking part in sports activities is becoming part of their lives.