This morning, the Information Office of the People's Government of Shandong Province held a press conference themed "High-Quality Completion of the '14th Five-Year' Plan," inviting principal officials from the Shandong Provincial Sports Bureau to discuss the achievements in Shandong's sports development during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period and to answer questions from journalists.
A Xinhua News Agency reporter inquired about the breakthroughs Shandong has made in cultivating competitive sports talents and its performance in major events during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the province's strengths in specific sports, and the experience behind achieving a "five consecutive championships" at the National Games.
Lin Chun stated that competitive sports are a prominent marker of a strong sports province and play a significant leading and driving role in promoting national fitness and the sports industry. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Shandong adhered to the principles of "upholding correctness while innovating and striving for comprehensive strength," vigorously enhancing its overall competitive sports prowess and achieving a series of excellent results in domestic and international competitions. First, the province pursued comprehensive strength in both the "Quest for Olympic Glory" and "Striving for Excellence in the National Games." The "Quest for Olympic Glory" represents the highest strategic goal for China's competitive sports. During this period, Shandong athletes won a total of 70 world championships, including 12 Olympic gold medals, the highest number for any comparable period in its history. At the Tokyo and Paris Olympic Games, Shandong ranked first and third nationally with 7 and 5 gold medals respectively, achieving consecutive golds in table tennis, shooting, and canoeing, alongside historic breakthroughs in fencing and swimming, solidifying its position as a top contributor to the national Olympic effort. Across the 14th and 15th National Games, Shandong secured 107 gold medals, maintaining its top rank in both gold and total medals, and successively achieved "four consecutive championships" and then a "five consecutive championships."
Second, the province strengthened both summer and winter sports comprehensively. Shandong coordinated the development of summer and winter sports, with summer sports excelling in the Olympic "Quest for Glory," Asian Games performance, and National Games competition, consistently ranking among the national leaders. Concurrently, the province vigorously promoted breakthrough development in winter sports. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, Shandong achieved a breakthrough by winning its first Winter Olympic medal. At the 4th Winter Youth Olympic Games, 5 Shandong athletes won 3 gold, 3 silver, and 1 bronze medals, demonstrating initial success in cultivating high-level reserve talents for winter sports. At the 14th National Winter Games, 48 athletes participated in 6 major sports, 12 disciplines, and 43 events, setting record highs for participation scope and athlete numbers, and achieved a historic best of 5 gold, 6 silver, and 6 bronze medals. The success of locally trained athletes winning gold and silver in ice and snow sports wrote a new chapter for Shandong's winter sports. At this year's Harbino Asian Winter Games, 8 Shandong athletes won 3 gold, 4 silver, and 2 bronze medals, ranking fifth nationally and achieving a "dual breakthrough" in both participation and gold medal wins. Through this work, Shandong has gradually developed a high-quality development mechanism for competitive sports. This system is guided by using "Olympic success to drive National Games excellence," follows the principles of competitive sports preparation cycles and the "Three Stricts and One Emphasis" training methodology (strict, difficult, practical training starting from actual competition needs, and high-volume training), and is supported by key measures such as building clusters of优势项目, forging a high-level team of gold-medal coaches, continuously enhancing scientific and medical support capabilities, strengthening reserve talent cultivation, exploring diversified development models for competitive sports, and emphasizing ideological and political development within sports teams. This mechanism has enabled batches of Shandong athletes to emerge and represent the nation on the highest podiums, contributing to national glory. The mixed team gold at the 14th Winter Games and the strong showing of top athletes like "Lin" at the Asian Winter Games are testaments to this.
Third, the province pursued strength in both elite-level and youth competitions comprehensively. In the 24 youth category events of the 15th National Games, Shandong won 3 gold, 6 silver, and 2 bronze medals, ranking second nationally. At the inaugural 2023 National Student (Youth) Games, Shandong secured 42 gold, 40 silver, and 33 bronze medals, also ranking second nationally and achieving its best-ever performance in the history of the National City Games and Youth Games. At the inaugural 2024 National Youth Ball Games, Shandong's 6 teams dominated the standings with 4 championship titles and 2 runner-up finishes. At the inaugural 2025 National Youth Athletics Games, Shandong won the gold medal in the men's team total points and the bronze in the women's team total points. The achievements in youth sports complement the success at the elite level. The steady improvement in the overall strength of competitive sports benefits from the robust support of high-level youth amateur training, fully showcasing the outcomes and effectiveness of Shandong's reserve talent cultivation. Young reserve athletes are being tested in major competitions, growing robustly, and gradually becoming the backbone for future Olympic and National Games success.
Stepping down from the podium means starting again from zero. Moving forward, Shandong will continue to anchor its goals on "taking the lead and shouldering major responsibilities," further enhancing its comprehensive competitive sports strength, striving to win glory for the nation and bring honor to the province, and making new, greater contributions to building a leading sports province and a sports power.
A Phoenix Net reporter asked about the achievements Shandong has made in improving the public service system for national fitness since the start of the "14th Five-Year Plan" and any breakthrough progress in enhancing public physical fitness and health levels.
Li Jingsheng stated that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Shandong closely focused on implementing the national fitness strategy, concentrating on perfecting the public service system for national fitness, and striving to promote the high-quality development of national fitness initiatives, achieving remarkable results. These are mainly reflected in the following four aspects. First, national fitness facilities have become increasingly完备. Shandong deeply implemented projects and initiatives to address shortcomings in national fitness infrastructure, coordinating 860 million yuan in central and provincial funds to build a four-level public sports facility network covering cities, counties, townships, and villages. Projects ensuring "three ones" at the county level and "two ones" at the township level, along with public fitness facilities in administrative villages, have basically achieved full coverage. Urban communities have generally established a "15-minute fitness circle," and the per capita sports场地面积 has reached 3.04 square meters. The province has newly built or renovated 116 sports parks each over 40,000 square meters, bringing the total number of large sports parks to 185, creating new green and convenient carriers for national fitness. Subsidies support public sports venues in opening to the society for free or at low charges, with the number of subsidized venues reaching 144 in 2025, continuously improving the level of opening services. Public sports场地设施 across the province are fully open to the public, and the opening rate of school sports facilities, where conditions permit, has reached nearly 83%. Examples include the Donggang Pickleball Theme Park and the Rizhao International Football Center.
Second, national fitness events and activities have become increasingly diverse. Shandong hosts the Shandong Provincial National Fitness Games and the Winter National Fitness Games annually, and the Intellectual Sports Games biennially, with participation scales continuously growing and influence expanding. The focus has been on下沉 event services to the grassroots, with regular community sports meets and rural sports "four competitions" held since 2021. Active efforts have been made to create a regional linkage event system along the coast, the Yellow River, the canal, and the齐长城, organizing rich thematic demonstration activities around important dates like National Fitness Day and the Farmers' Harvest Festival. The province meticulously organized the 5th Provincial Senior Citizens Games and continuously carried out the "Million People Practicing Tai Chi" activity, training over 600,000 key Tai Chi instructors for the elderly. Mass sports events and activities are flourishing across the province, increasing significantly year by year, reaching over 95,000 events in 2025 with participation exceeding 10 million人次. Events like the National Village BA Northern Division赛 igniting enthusiasm in Zhaoyuan's Dahu Chenjia Village and the 2024 FIVB Volleyball Men's Challenger Cup (Linyi) are examples.
Third, national fitness organizations and personnel have grown increasingly robust. The total number of sports social organizations at all levels in the province exceeds 48,000, with nearly 8,000 registered or filed at the county level and above. Senior citizens' sports associations have been普遍建成 at the city, county, and township levels. The construction of the social sports instructor team has been further strengthened, with the total number of public welfare social sports instructors reaching 270,000, averaging 2.7 per thousand people. Steady progress has been made in training female social sports instructors in rural areas, with 12,300 trained over three years, covering 5,752 administrative villages. Leveraging social sports instructors, the province广泛开展 volunteer services like "Professionals Assisting Public Welfare" and "Champions for Public Welfare," establishing 151 excellent service stations. National physique monitoring is also conducted.
Fourth, scientific fitness guidance services have become more accessible and beneficial. National physique monitoring is conducted regularly, and the special "Qilu Physique Assessment Tour" action is implemented, providing physique testing and fitness guidance services to over 100,000 people annually at various levels across the province. Activities such as the annual Scientific Fitness Lecture Hall, sports health science popularization, adolescent scoliosis screening and physique improvement, and grassroots scientific fitness guidance tours serve over 1 million people each year. The integration of sports and health services is being deeply promoted, further improving the standard system for this integration, with over 60 standards released.
Next, Shandong will persist in developing sports that satisfy the people, focus on deepening reform and innovation, improve the policy system, provide more balanced and higher-level public services for national fitness, promote the deep integration of national fitness and public health, and make new, greater contributions to improving the physical health quality of the province's residents.
A Dazhong Daily/Dazhong News reporter inquired about the "Three Major Balls" (football, basketball, volleyball) enhancement project as a key focus of Shandong's sports development during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, asking for details on achievements and related measures.
Lin Chun stated that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Shandong's three major ball sports achieved excellent results. Currently, 16 teams participate in professional leagues, and over 260 athletes have been输送 to national teams at various levels, emerging知名 players like Yang Hansen and Zhang Ziyu. At the 15th National Games, all 22 of Shandong's three major ball teams entered the top eight, with 12 teams reaching the podium, securing a total of 4 gold and 5 silver medals. Notably, the men's volleyball team won the adult group championship for the first time, achieving a historic breakthrough. At the inaugural 2024 Youth Three Major Balls Games, Shandong's 6 teams won 4 gold and 2 silver medals. The Qilu Football Super League, held continuously for 11 years, gained widespread popularity after reforming its competition system this year, creating a positive social atmosphere. Explorations were mainly conducted in four areas. Firstly, building a stable and enduring institutional mechanism. Adhering to a "province-wide coordinated approach," Shandong established and improved a management system for the three major balls led by the Provincial Sports Bureau, with city/county sports departments forming the chain and sports associations at all levels closely cooperating on implementation. The provincial level has independent sports event management centers; sports departments in all 16 cities have management bodies for the three major balls; the province has established 3 provincial associations, 44 city-level associations, and 260 county-level associations, with football and basketball achieving full coverage at the city level and over 91% coverage at the county level.
Secondly, creating a professional and standardized training system. Emphasizing the示范引领 of professional youth梯队, 8 professional football clubs in the province have established 39 high-level youth training梯队. Consolidating the体校 as the main阵地 for youth training, there are currently 5 national key football sports schools, and 4 basketball and 8 volleyball national high-level reserve talent bases. Strengthening the foundation of school-based youth training, the province promoted cities and counties to co-establish teams with quality schools. In the 2022 Provincial Games, 62 out of 87 football teams came from such "city-school partnerships." Encouraging social capital to establish youth training institutions, the province has a total of 561 football youth training institutions. Martial arts schools in Caozhou, Laizhou, etc., innovatively developed a "martial arts + football" cross-sport talent selection and training model.
Thirdly, innovatively building a high-level competition system. Leveraging the Provincial Games as a competition lever, Shandong built an integrated competition system encompassing professional, specialized, school, and social sectors, achieving full coverage for team formation by various training entities and player participation, effectively mobilizing各方 enthusiasm for youth training. Addressing two major youth training challenges—conflict between study and training, and disconnect between training and competition—Shandong took the lead nationally by releasing an annual competition calendar for youth students at the provincial, city, and county levels, creating a "one-hour competition交通圈," and decomposing tournament-style competitions into well-sequenced regional competitions and provincial competition direct qualification modes. Currently, the province hosts over 3,000 provincial-level youth competitions for the three major balls annually, with over 17,000 participant人次.
Fourthly, smoothing the growth and development pathway for athletes. Continuously improving the selection and growth mechanism for three major balls talents, Shandong has打通 athlete升学通道, perfected the "631" structured升学直通模式, established 904 provincial-level traditional项目 schools for the three major balls across the province, and pioneered a "3+4" football talent贯通培养 pilot program between sports schools and sports universities. Promoting the widespread offering of three major balls courses in primary and secondary schools, incorporating them into the optional sports subjects for the high school entrance exam, encouraging extensive intra-school class competitions and inter-school competitions, and creating "the most beautiful home courts." Shandong also took the lead nationally in introducing measures for setting up school sports coach positions and职称评价, smoothing the channel for retired athletes to become school coaches.
Next, Shandong will continue to improve the management mechanisms for the three major balls, comprehensively promote their revitalization and development, and make greater contributions to building a leading sports province.