Tibet spends 5b yuan on sports over decade

The Tibet autonomous region has poured nearly 5.23 billion yuan ($724 million) into sports projects over the past decade, sports authorities said at a news conference in the regional capital Lhasa on Monday.

Over the past decade, Tibet has achieved all-around progress in the sports sector and marked a historic breakthrough. In particular, the region has been making efforts to enhance the protection and inheritance of ethnic sports projects and the development of outdoor sports over the period.

More than 22 ethnic sports including the Damchirim Horse Race of the region's Damshung county, and the Lhasa kites have been put on the national and regional intangible cultural heritage lists, and items like Tibetan tug-of-war (yajia), and Tibetan wrestling have been included as events in national ethnic sports meets, Wang Dejun, spokesman of the regional sports bureau, told a news conference.

Items including weightlifting (stone-lifting) and Tibetan chess have been included in regional ethnic sports meets. The equestrian events during the annual Tibetan New Year and the yajia were listed as excellent sports events of Chinese traditional sports cultural items in 2020, Wang said.

The participation of residents in sports has been improving dramatically over the decade, with more than 997,000 people regularly taking part in physical exercise throughout the region, accounting for more than 28 percent of the population, Wang added.

The region has more than 8,600 sports venues, more than 3,000 sports events have been held over the decade, and more than 380 medals have been won by Tibetan athletes in various international games.

Nyima Tsering, head of the regional sports bureau, said ski mountaineering has been added as one of the events of the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milan-Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, and the sport is a newly emerging one in China.

"Tibetan athletes now account for nearly 80 percent of the national ski mountaineering team, and they are getting more competitive in challenging European athletes," he said.

In the future, Tibet will strive to build a diversified outdoor sports industry platform, aiming to host sports events such as the Trans-Himalayan International Cycling Extreme, the China Tibet Mountaineering Convention and the National Ski Mountaineering Championships, he said.

According to the bureau, the region has been carrying out seasonal cleaning on climbing mountains and mountaineering rescue since 2013, and more than 50 metric tons of waste have been cleaned up in the past few years.