Together with the People's Republic of China as a whole, Chinese athletes have undergone an extraordinary process of development in the past 60 years, from being almost nonexistent to becoming highly accomplished and influential on the international stage. China has shed its image as the "sick man in East Asia."

Before 1949, the year the People's Republic was founded, a large number of Chinese people were physically weak and unskilled in sports, sportsmen were scarce and facilities woefully deficient. In 1952, Mao Zedong proclaimed the famous slogan of "promote physical culture and sports, improve the people's physical fitness," which laid the policy foundation for the development of Chinese sports.

In the last 30 years, Chinese sports have experienced profound changes through a series of reforms in management systems and training and competition facilities, as well as the development of mass sports, competitive sports and the sports industry. The People's Republic of China resumed its legal status in the International Olympic Committee in 1979. In 1984, athletes from the Chinese mainland participated in the Summer Olympics for the first time after 1949 and won the country's first-ever Olympic gold medal in Los Angeles.

By August 2009, Chinese athletes had won 2,310 world championships and set 1,195 world records. There are 850,000 stadiums on the Chinese mainland, more than 200 times the number 60 years ago. Per-capita sports venue area now stands at 1.03 square meters, more than 100 times the figure 60 years ago. During the past 60 years, mass sports organizations have formed in almost every part of the country. Twenty-three provincial mass sports instruction centers, nearly 210,000 local fitness centers and 3,092 youth sports clubs have been established.

But no matter how many medals Chinese athletes have won, the status of mass sports in China is not yet satisfactory. With last year's Beijing Olympics and this autumn's National Games both running to a successful close, we hope the real foundation for our "sports nation" lies in the promotion of mass sports activities and physical fitness for the country's 1.3 billion people.