China News Service, Hangzhou, October 8 (Zhang Yuhuan, Chen Suqin) At the just-concluded Aichi Nagoya Asian Games, 17-year-old Ningbo girl Chen Yujie competed in four events, winning three gold medals and one silver medal. And just a few years ago, she was a "passer-by" player who was temporarily invited to participate in the school sports meeting. At that time, tennis, taekwondo, and dancing were her real after-school hobbies.
At this Asian Games, Zhejiang still has many young athletes like Chen Yujie who "grew up" from campus. The results of 35 golds, 12 silvers, and 12 bronzes set a new record for Zhejiang athletes in overseas competitions. Behind the glory, Zhejiang Sports School has experienced a profound change from "closing the door" to "opening the door wider and wider."
From a single sports school educating talents to a diversified collaboration of "sports schools + characteristic schools + clubs", the value of sports schools as the "main front" for competitive sports reserve talents is being redefined.
On September 25, local time, in the women's 100-meter track and field final of the 2026 Aichi Nagoya Asian Games, Chinese player Chen Yujie won the gold medal in 11.06 seconds. Photo by China News Service reporter Tomita
Good seedlings "grow" from the popular soil on campus
Chen Yujie’s path to success started not at a sports school, but at a primary school sports meet. At that time, she had no systematic training, but she showed amazing explosive power and cadence. Later, he was spotted by his physical education teacher and recommended to enter Ningbo Sports School, where he studied under Wu Yacun.
Good prospects will not emerge out of thin air. Interest is the biggest driving force of youth sports. The foundation of talent selection is to expand the base of campus popularization. As the "cradle of champions" that has produced many Olympic champions, the swimming program of Hangzhou Chen Jinglun Sports School implements "one team, one strategy, one person, one strategy". Physiological and biochemical monitoring is used to scientifically adjust training intensity. The grassroots selection attaches great importance to children's innate "water sense."
In Zhejiang, a large number of grassroots coaches regularly go to primary and secondary schools and kindergartens to select young children: Wenzhou Sports School coach Lin Menghua discovered Xu Jiayu when he was in the first grade of elementary school; Pan Zhanle was spotted by the enlightenment coach Ye Xin during the kindergarten selection.
Discovering talent is only the first step to becoming a talent. Opening up a growth channel that takes into account both learning and training is an important starting point for the integration of sports and education in Zhejiang. Ningbo Sports School has established an integrated closed loop of “selection-training-transmission” to resolve conflicts in learning and training. Relying on the advantages of the "integration of education and sports" system, Shaoxing has brought professional sports resources to the campus in the form of "sports events in the classroom" and "district team and school-run" to achieve two-way empowerment of cultural learning and competitive training. Jinhua has improved the layout of the "124" sports and education integrated echelon and improved the "one-stop" training system. Huzhou has incorporated sports schools into the compulsory education sequence and insisted on paying equal attention to reading and training.
On September 21, local time, in the men's 50-meter backstroke final of the swimming event at the Aichi Nagoya Asian Games, Chinese athlete and Asian record holder Xu Jiayu won the gold medal in 24.04 seconds, setting a new competition record. Chinese player Wang Zicheng finished second. The picture shows Xu Jiayu (front) celebrating after the game. Photo by China News Service reporter Cui Nan
Open the door for sports, let diverse forces come together
Zhejiang has boldly reformed, breaking the institutional barriers of "playing sports behind closed doors", and building a diversified development pattern in which "the party committee and government pay attention, the sports department coordinates, functional departments collaborate, and all sectors of society participate", and actively explores models such as provincial teams run by local teams, provincial teams run by schools, provincial team associations, and provincial teams run by enterprises.
Wenzhou took the lead in solving the problem and breaking the path dependence solely on sports schools at all levels. Through various methods such as public-private joint ventures, private-sponsored assistance, private proprietorship, and the combination of sports and education, it has realized the two-pronged approach of the national system and the market mechanism, forming the "Wenzhou model" of social forces running sports. Quzhou and Zhoushan have cultivated batches of reserve talents through the innovative model of "school + sports school + club".
The construction of the coaching team also needs to "open the door" to the outside world. Zhejiang has established a mechanism for selecting and training provincial team coaches at the grassroots level. It dynamically selects and trains more than 700 key reserve talents every year, and creates 59 national sports reserve talent bases. For advantageous projects, coaches are selected through "three batches" (a batch retained by retired personnel, a batch selected by grassroots, and a batch recruited from the community). Diving, boxing, football and other projects recruit talents from all over the country and the world, and explore joint training of athletes with other provinces and cities.
At the same time, the province has unblocked the channels for the introduction of grassroots coaches, implemented incentives for retired athletes to teach, built a studio for famous coaches with gold medals, and promoted two-way exchanges where provincial team coaches are sent down and grassroots coaches are promoted.
Reshaping sports schools and cultivating talents in dual tracks
From the perspective of the industry, campus popularization and top-notch sports schools have different divisions of labor, and the two cannot replace each other.
At present, Zhejiang has achieved "one school in one county", with 11 sports schools at the same level covering all districts and cities. High-level bases such as Wenzhou Sports School, Shaoxing Aquatic Sports School, Jinhua Sports School, and Taizhou Youth Sports School each show their strengths. 55 new sports schools have broken the bottleneck of running schools. More than 3,000 events every year attract millions of teenagers to participate, and the number of registered young athletes in Zhejiang has increased to 304,000.
Through grassroots events and mass sports events to test training results and expand the talent selection pool, Zhejiang has formed an ecological closed loop of "grassroots talent selection-sports school training-field inspection-feeding back to the grassroots".
Don’t give up the joy of sports for ordinary children, and don’t bury the competitive dreams of talented teenagers. The emergence of young famous players in the Asian Games is the fruit of the integration of sports and education. This door opens to every child who loves sports, and the road to competitive sports becomes wider and wider. (over)
